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 0-24-month-olds,
- Koala Crate for 2-4-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 and Maker 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 by KiwiCo
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, and worldwide from $4.95-$6.95
KiwiCo Kiwi Crate "Gravity Car" Review March 2020
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Our theme for this month is Gravity Car 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. They broke down our project into various sections that simplified the process for us. 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.
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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 they use gravity to build a giant snowman! In addition to some educational pages, there are also some fun activities and even a recipe for Newton's apple muffins.
Project 1: Gravity Car
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The first step to building our gravity car was to add some adhesive foam pieces to one of these plastic spools and then add it to this small dowel.
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Then she added two small wheels to either side of the dowel and pressed them against the foam adhesives to keep the wheel secure after we removed the dowel.
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We then followed the same steps to make a large wheel.
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Then she added two foam gray donuts to the two remaining small circles and we set all of that aside.
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Next, she built the frame for her car using a mix of wooden pieces and plastic spacers and screws.
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She followed the directions with a little help from me to secure everything together, but it was pretty simple since all of the holes were cut out and just needed to be lined up.
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Then she added the orange plastic tubes and foam donuts to the front end of the car.
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Next, it was time to make the weight which was simply a plastic water bottle that we filled up with water. Then she stuck a piece of velcro to the side of it.
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Then she wrapped the string around the bottle three times and used the other side of the velcro piece to hold it into place.
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Next, she added her large wheel to the back using one of these longer dowels.
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The small circles with gray foam went on the front using the second large dowel. Then everything was secured with some small O-rings.
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She added the green Kiwi Crate piece to the slots at the front of her car and it was almost ready to go!
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Now it was time to place the weighted bottle at the front of the car and wind the string up and over the top of the car. The little metal end actually stuck right through the hole in the side of the large wheel circle to hold it securely.
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Now it's ready to go!
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The first step was wheeling the car backward so that the string would wrap around the back wheel and raise the bottle to the top of the car. Then we let it go and as the bottle dropped, the wheels turned and our car went across the room!
This was pretty fun and we tested it out a few times before moving on to some experiments!
Project 2: Gravity Car Experiments
First, we switched out our large wheel for the smaller wheel we had created and observed the difference. This was pretty simple, we just had to remove the O-rings and the dowel and slide the new wheel in.
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Next, we removed the string from our water bottle by simply undoing the velcro. Then we used the little cardboard basket and pipe cleaner they provided and attached it to the string of our gravity car.
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We brainstormed about ways we could get it moving since and she decided to use our little Daniel Tiger plastic toys in the basket. This worked pretty well, but it still wasn't heavy enough so she kept brainstorming and added different things until it worked. This was fun to watch and a great way for her to problem solve using the materials around her!
Project 3: Drip Paintings
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After having some fun with our car, we decided to do our drip paintings. We flipped over the box and added four clear plastic stickers to cover all of the holes at the bottom of our box.
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Then we put together the small plastic art stand and set it upright.
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I attached one of the three papers they provided with the included clip and set the whole thing inside our box.
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We dissolved the two dye tablets in water using the cups they provided and stirred them with sticks to help move things along.
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Then we used the two small syringes to drip water over the surface of the paper. My daughter loved this part!
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Once we did some drips in one direction, we turned our paper to the side and tried some drips in the other direction. What a great visual lesson for gravity!
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We had a lot of fun experimenting with our other two papers! It got pretty messy, but since our box had tape over the holes, everything stayed inside our box meaning there was really no mess to clean up afterward!
Here are our finished drip paintings!
Verdict: This month's Kiwi Crate was such a great exploration of the concept of gravity! The gravity car was such a cool concept in itself, but then to include the bonus experiments with the extra wheel and basket, and even a separate drip painting activity made it feel so thorough and well-executed! My daughter really enjoyed all of the activities and I loved watching her brain work as she tinkered with her gravity car. Our Explore! magazine also had some great educational materials and even more fun activities for us, which seems like a nice bonus! This was another great box and a fun way to learn about gravity that was presented in an organized manner appropriate for the target age group!
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!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
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