Amazon has launched a STEM Club Toy subscription box! This monthly subscription delivers "handpicked, high-quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math toys" to your door for $19.99/month.
We signed up for Amazon's STEM Toy Club subscription as soon as it launched. This subscription looks like any other shipment from Amazon, with no exterior branding on the box or special insert:
There are 3 age range options:
- 3-4-year-olds (counting, building, and cause and effect)
- 5-7 year-olds (hands-on experiments and explorations of electricity, earth science, and simple math)
- 8-13-year-olds (more complex projects and experiments based on principals of physics, chemistry, and engineering)
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
This is a review of the 3-4-year-old age range Amazon STEM Club, $19.99/month.
About This Educational Subscription for Kids
The Subscription Box: Amazon STEM Toy Club
The Cost: $19.99 per month
The Products: Each month you will receive a different, age-appropriate STEM toy.
Ships to: U.S. (free shipping)
April's Toy: Candy Construction Building Set
Learning Resources Candy Construction Building Set – Retail Price $34.99 (Available here for $23.11)
I feel like I've gotten some good toys from Learning Resources in the past, and I have to admit: I thought this was pretty cute at first, or at least a unique take on a building toy.
The set comes with a variety of candy-shaped pieces that you can use to build various models. It's a little bit "gingerbread house" and a little bit "building a bridge from toothpicks and marshmallows."
I was particularly enamored with the flexible red licorice pieces, but they also include starlight mints to be used as wheels, chocolate bars for flat surfaces, and candy-striped sticks for other parts of your structure.
Once I got over the novelty of it, I started to think a little more critically about how my son would react to this. Like most kids, he would eat sugary junk all day if we let him, and having a toy that just reminds him of candy seems a little... unnecessary?
My internal mom voice is saying to myself: Like, why not a veggie-themed construction set? Haha.
The instruction booklet gives you a few models to build as an example:
He loves cars and anything that moves, so this was high on my list to try.
The more I look at these suggestions, the more I think they'd be fun for Christmas decorations, of all things! It must be the starlight mints specifically, but I could see this toy being used for some fun mantel arrangements or for non-perishable gingerbread-like decor.
I decided to test things out on my own by building the car:
Pretty cute, but the set itself wasn't super easy to build with. I found that while I was trying to move on to the next step, other pieces would come undone... it's like there wasn't enough friction to hold them sturdily in place. My 3-year-old gets frustrated easily, so this just underscored to me even more that this isn't an ideal toy for him.
And once we took a few photos of it...
It simply fell apart. Maybe some of the other ideas in the booklet are a little sturdier, but unfortunately, this toy did not pass the mommy test this month.
Verdict:
My son typically loves the Amazon STEM Box– he likes anything that he can build (and destroy) so it's really great fun for us to have something new to try regularly. This is a rare month where I just don't like the toy enough to bring it home for him: I wasn't thrilled about the candy theme to start, but the actual experience of building with this set didn't meet my expectations, either, and it seemed like it would be frustrating for both of us.
We've had some really great toys with this subscription, too, and toys that retail for close to double the subscription price– so over time I still think it can be a good buy. But since the toys are from a variety of different brands, you can expect that some months are hit or miss.
To Wrap Up:
Check out all of our Amazon STEM Toy Club reviews, more educational and STEM subscriptions for kids, and all Amazon subscription boxes in our subscription box directory!
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What do you think of this month's toy from the Amazon STEM Club Toy subscription box?
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