Kiwi Crate is a subscription box for kids ages 5-8 from parent company KiwiCo. It arrives every month with all the materials and instructions needed to complete 2-3 crafts centered on a theme, plus additional materials to help educate young learners!
KiwiCo offers boxes for different age groups:
- Panda Crate for 0 to 24-month-olds,
- Koala Crate for 2 to 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, and
- Eureka Crate for ages 14 and up.
There really is something for every age with this company!
This review is of KiwiCo’s Kiwi Crate (for ages 5-8), which costs $19.95 per month.
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 Kiwi Crate
The Subscription Box: Kiwi 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. Projects cover a number of developmental areas through art, science, and imaginative play.
Ships to: The U.S. for free, Canada for $3.95 per month, worldwide from $4.95-$6.95
Kiwi Crate September 2019 "Playing with Puzzles" Review
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Our theme for this month is Playing with Puzzles and we received this booklet which contains the directions for our activities. This includes detailed, colored illustrations and clear instructions that are easy to follow. On the back of the booklet they include their social media links and a sticker for this month’s project.
This is the little sticker chart that we received in our first Kiwi Crate along with our welcome note. This time we got to add our Playing with Puzzles sticker after we completed our projects.
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Each month you also get a Kiwi Explore! magazine with a letter from Steve the Kiwi and a little comic to go along with the theme starring some cute characters. This month the gang is packing a suitcase and compares it to fitting everything together inside like a puzzle. This was such a brilliant way to explain puzzles and organization to kids! The rest of the pages contain information related to our theme and we started with a great discussion on the different parts of the brain and what each section does.
My daughter was really into the booklet activities this month! There were brain teasers, tangrams and other fun extension activities that she is excited about completing.
Shape Stacking Puzzle
Part A: Build a Game Board
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Our first task was to assemble these parts to make a frame for our puzzle stacking game. I first bent the stand so that it would stand upright.
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My daughter followed the instructions to place the clear pane behind the wood frame and use the included clips to hold them together before adding it to our stand.
Part B: Build a Shape Dispenser
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Now it was time to assemble our shape dispenser. Liv followed the directions to put the side pieces into the slots and then I held it steady for her so she could place a rubber band around each of the ends to hold them in place.
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Then she added the top the same way.
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Next, she added all of these green tabs to the slots in this gray foam piece.
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We placed our base on the edges of our box to hold it still and then we slid the foam piece with tabs into the large hole in the center.
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She added foam stickers to the corners of these blue comb pieces and then we carefully slid it in making sure that the green tabs aligned with one to a slot and stuck the stickers to the inside of our base.
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Liv added the other side of our dispenser and secured it with more rubber bands. Then we added the other blue comb to the inside of it so that it mirrored the other side.
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She slid this foam piece into the slots at the bottom.
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We added these elastic strings to either side.
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Then we pushed the green tabs in so that it formed little shelves within our dispenser.
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Then my son added the wooden shape pieces one to a shelf in random order.
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Once it was filled we added the front door and secured it using the elastics we had added.
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Here is our finished shape dispenser.
Part C: Shape Stacking Puzzle Challenge
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Now it was time to play! To dispense a shape we simply started at the bottom and pulled out the green tab allowing the shape to drop to the bottom. Then we placed it on the board.
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We worked on stacking the shapes Tetris style trying to make sure we didn't leave any blank spaces anywhere.
We took turns adding pieces to the board and when we couldn't fit any more we counted the number of empty spaces we left so that next time we could try and beat our score! This was such a great game to play with them and perfect for helping them develop so many different skills. While I would have been happy with just this, there were still more fun activities for us!
Puzzle Pictures
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We took apart our frame and then we started arranging shapes on the gray piece of foam they provided to make various animals. They gave us a few ideas that were simple and easy to follow and we first attempted the cat.
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Then we added a piece of paper on top of our animal shape, placed our frame over the paper to hold it in place and then we created a rubbing using the unwrapped crayons that they provided.
This was such a cute extension idea that they loved!
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After their drawings, then they simply had fun playing with the shapes and creating their own characters like this robot girl my daughter designed. The fun really is endless with these shapes!
Verdict: This month's Kiwi Crate was a lot of fun! I love that not only did we create a shape dispenser, but they also included a game for us to play, some ideas for art extensions through creative play and even a book full of puzzles and brain teasers for us. The booklet was so educational and full of information that was engaging and age-appropriate for my daughter. It just felt like a very well-rounded box overall! I also love how well this box is organized and how clear and easy the directions are to follow which always makes for a pleasant experience. The amount of fun we had playing with puzzles was definitely worth the $19.95 plus free shipping cost of this box for us!
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? It is possible you might get this crate, but it is not a guarantee. From KiwiCo:
Crates are assigned each month based on availability and your crate history - not all subscribers receive the same theme each month.
Check out all of our Kiwi Crate reviews and more boxes for ages 5-8 in the Kids Subscription Box Directory!
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