Atlas Crate is a subscription box for kids 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:
- Tadpole Crate for 0-36-month-olds,
- Koala Crate for 3-4-year-olds,
- Kiwi Crate for 5-8-year-olds,
- Atlas Crate for 6-11-year-olds,
- Doodle Crate and Tinker Crate for 9-16+-year-olds,
- Eureka Crate for ages 14 and up.
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: The U.S. for free, Canada for $5.95 per month, worldwide from $6.95-$7.95.
Atlas Crate August 2019 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, plus an introduction to Anya the Cricket and Milo the Sandpiper and our Adventure Book.
They included this welcome letter from Anya and Milo.
Adventure Book - Original Version (July 2018)
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In our first box, we received a page for each of the continents to get our Adventure Book started. These pages contain numerous facts about animals and other fun things that can be found there along with information about the size and population. They also included two metal rings to hold the pages together that open, allowing us to add new pages to it each month. The first page of the book introduced us to how Anya and Milo got interested in traveling while the last page was a recipe for trail mix to give us some energy for our travels.
Adventure Book - New Version (August 2019)
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I received a duplicate World box this month, but one thing I noticed was that our Adventure Book was much different than the original version. In this updated version, they provided bead and cord bindings instead of the original metal rings and they also provided some fun stickers for us to use to decorate it.
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First, I added our name to the little sticker tag and stuck it on the front of our book. Then I added some of the fun travel themed stickers they provided and used the brown stickers to show our travel path.
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For the original version, we would stick our stickers onto the front of the book each month to show the countries we visited and you can see that my old book was filling up which may just be the reason for the updated book! With the new version, while the pages inside were the same, we now have both a front and back page that have fun passport looking pages on the inside for us to add our country badges to now. These pages allow for a lot more travels!
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I stacked up my pages and then added our new cord and binding to the holes on the side and secured them to hold our book together.
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While I like the look of the cord and binding, I actually prefer the metal rings because the book easily opens flat and it is much easier to add pages to it. With the cord and binding, I have to loosen it up a bit before the pages will open flat and to add new pages, I actually have to undo my cords and take the book apart to add the new pages where I want them. With the metal rings I simply flipped to the section I wanted to add my pages, opened the ring and inserted pages before closing it up. So while I'm not a fan of the new binding method, I am excited to have some fresh pages to add my country badges to!
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 4-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: I am pleased to see that the World box from Atlas Crate has been updated a little bit even though my first review of it was only a year ago. This is such a great indicator of the level of thought and care that goes into each of the boxes that KiwiCo puts out. While I personally like the metal rings better, I love that they revamped their Adventure book and made it more of an experience that adds to the activities in this box and of course, that they gave us more room to collect our country badges. This box follows in suit with other boxes from this company in that it is well-organized, easy to follow and allows for some independence for older children while providing great educational information. The theme of the World serves as a great introduction to the box and the fun facts about animals are engaging and appropriate for the target ages of 6-11-year-olds. The spinning globe was fun to make and is a great first activity that can be used over and over again as you visit different countries in your follow up boxes! This box costs $19.95 plus free shipping and I think that the value is definitely there.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Yes! You'll begin your Atlas Crate subscription with this box.
Check out all of our KiwiCo reviews and the best subscription boxes for kids!
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