Atlas Crate is the newest subscription box from parent company KiwiCo. This box is designed to spark the curiosity and sense of adventure in children ages 6-11 and help them become citizens of the world. Each month they will deliver materials and instructions to provide hands-on experiences to help them develop their sense of cultural awareness.
KiwiCo offers boxes for different age groups: Cricket Crate is for 24-36-month-olds, Koala Crate is for 3-4-year-olds, Kiwi Crate is for 5-8-year-olds, and Doodle Crate, Tinker Crate for 9-16+-year-olds, and Atlas Crate for 6-11-year-olds. There really is something for every age with this company.
This review is of the $19.95 a month Atlas Crate box, for 6-11-year-olds.
This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes).
About Atlas Crate
The Subscription Box: Atlas Crate
The Cost: $19.95 per month + free shipping
The Products: Crafts and DIY projects for kids, with supplemental learning kits, booklets, and activities. Crates are filled with materials and inspiration to encourage creativity and curiosity about the world.
Ships to: U.S. for free, Canada for $6.95 per month
Good to know: This is a brand new subscription that is only available for pre-order now! Boxes start shipping in August!
Atlas Crate July 2018 Review
The theme for this month was the World. As is customary in a crate from KiwiCo, everything was nicely packaged and incredibly organized and easy to locate.
This envelope unfolded to show us a contents list, an introduction to Anya the Cricket and Milo the Sandpiper and our Adventure Book.
They included this welcome letter from Anya and Milo.
This is the Adventure Book that we received. It came with rings that easily open and close and the best part is that they will send us more pages to add to it next time. The first page of the book introduced us to how Anya and Milo got interested in traveling.
The pages of the book feature each of the continents and give some great facts about animals and other fun things that can be found there. They also give the size and population and I found them to be very informative.
Since the pages are on a ring you can open up just to the one you want to check out.
The last page had this trail mix recipe on it and they included it because "travel takes energy." I love the extra little facts around it!
We got to make our own spinning globe which I thought was perfect for the World theme. All materials were packaged up neatly and easy to locate and came with its own instruction booklet.
The first page has a little contents list with pictures and defines what a globe is. All pictures are in color and the steps are numbered.
The first step was to put the two pieces of our globe together. Then we got out our continent stickers and as you can see, the spots were marked on our globe as far as where to put them.
The instructions were so clear and easy to follow. It was nice that they had an actual size picture for us to compare our continent stickers to before placing them. My 3-year-old daughter was responsible for helping to locate them and peeling the backing off and these pictures made it much easier for her.
Once we had our continents in place, we stuck the wooden dowel through the center of our globe. They included these little plastic rings to help hold our globe in place on our dowel.
The last step was to put it on the stand which was super easy and as always, well thought out on their part. These little wooden pieces slid right on and then we used the foam semi-circles to hold them in place.
Here is our globe spinning.
They even gave us a little heart-shaped felt sticker to mark where our home is. So cute! Although, it's slightly out of place since it stuck to my fingers a bit.
The back of our book had some great information about globes and answered some questions that kids might have after completing their own globe.
We received this large, colorful and detailed World Map to help us with the Great Big World Map Challenge. This provided a lot of great information and a fun way to practice reading and learning about maps!
I love that they found a way for us to use the compass and key on our map by locating various landmarks. There were the Seven Wonders to locate as well as the Seven Summits. These were clearly marked on the map, but since the map was so large it took us a while to locate them all. This would be a good independent activity, but younger children might need some assistance! They also included some fun facts about all of these such as their height.
The map was clearly marked to show latitude and longitude and the inside of the book provided a brief lesson on how to locate using coordinates. To provide some practice with this, they gave coordinates for where you can find some unique animals around the world. I think a 6-year-old might need a little bit of assistance, but the older kids could probably complete this somewhat independently!
The back page of the book had famous shipwrecks that we could locate using latitude and longitude again. There was also an answer key at the bottom, which is great for checking your answers!
The last item in our box was this little souvenir button. It was a cute little bonus item!
Verdict: This is the very first Atlas Crate and I had high expectations since we already enjoy Kiwi Crate so much. While this box wasn't as hands-on, I think it still lived up to those expectations. Everything was well-organized, easy to follow and allowed for some independence for older children. It was incredibly educational and would be an awesome social studies lesson or reinforcer. The theme of the World served as a great introduction to the box and the fun facts about animals were engaging and appropriate for the target ages of 6-11-year-olds. This box costs $19.95 plus free shipping and I think that the value was definitely there. Our spinning globe was fun to make and is something we can use again and the idea of adding to our Adventure Book is exciting. It will be interesting to see what they do in their follow-up box!
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Yes! This is a brand new subscription and crates began shipping until August! You can Pre-order now!
Check out all of our KiwiCo reviews and more boxes for ages 5-8 and ages 9-12 in the Kids Subscription Box List!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
What do you think of Atlas Crate?
Please do not enter your email address in the Name field or in the comment content. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *. Remember to post with kindness and respect. Comments with offensive language, cruelness to others, etc will not be approved. See our full comment policy here.