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 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 "Push-and-Pull Toys" Review July 2020
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Our theme for this month is Push-and-Pull Toys 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 we received in our first Kiwi Crate along with our welcome note that we can add our sticker to!
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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 we learned about tension and they gave some great real-life examples like the game tug-of-war and stringing an instrument.
My daughter enjoyed the "string-the-dots" activity that was included. Then we decided to try out their instructions for recycling our box into a working elevator for our toys!
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First, I cut the lid off of our box and then cut it into two separate sections. Then I folded the ends up and fit them together to make a little box that fit inside our larger box. I glued the smaller pieces together and set it inside our box to dry.
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When it was dry, we poked two holes into the top of our smaller box and added some string. Then we poked holes at the top on the side of the big box and slid a dowel that we had on hand into the holes. We taped the center of the string to the center of the dowel and when we rolled upwards, our elevator would rise.
This was such a simple activity that demonstrated how elevators work and provided a fun toy for the kids to play with!
Toy 1: Push Puppets
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Our first activity was to make some wooden push puppets. My daughter prepared the base by adding the smaller wooden pieces to the slots in the base and placing the foam rectangles onto the marked spots.
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She added a screw and spacer to the center, then added the hook and another spacer before using a nut to tighten the other wooden piece to the end.
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Then she placed on the top wooden piece and added some rubber bands around the tabs that stuck out to secure it. Then she got to work adding bolts to each corner hole to hold the entire unit together.
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Then she added the elastic to the two holes at the end and down through the hook before sliding on her wooden beads to form her puppets.
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I did have to help her move the rubber band from the bottom to fit around the end of the hook because it was a tight space we were working in.
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Then she added some googly eyes and her puppets were complete.
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When she pushed down the lever at the back her little puppets would dance and wiggle around. We experimented with different speeds to see what happened.
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They provided two different scenes for our puppet show but she was most excited for the blank page where she could draw her own!
Here it is in action. Cute and simple! She cut out a bunch of extra papers so she can continue to make up her own scenes.
Toy 2: Woven Turtle
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Next, it was time to make a woven turtle. Kiwi Crate provided enough materials to make two. There were two wooden shell bases and two different shades of green yarn. We taped down the end of our yarn using the blue foam sticker and then began to weave the yarn following the arrows and making sure to alternate between going under and over each section.
Weaving was incredibly tedious and I was tired by the time I finished mine! While my daughter was doing a great job, she did get a little burnt out and I had to finish hers for her. When we got to the end of the yarn we stuck the other end down into the center with another foam rectangle.
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We lined up our shells with our green foam turtle and the green felt center piece, then added a screw and nut to secure it all.
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We added a green foam circle to the end of the turtle's head along with some googly eyes. Then we stuck a straw into that hole and our turtle was ready to race!
Here are our finished turtles!
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In order to get our turtles racing, we had to tape another straw piece to the end of our box with the foam strips they provided and then we tied some of the string they gave us around a chair leg. Then we threaded the string through the straw in our turtle, through the straw on top of our box, and stretched it until the line was taut. From there, I added one of the extra wooden beads to the end so that it wouldn't slip back through the straw.
As we tugged on the string the turtle would inch forward. We didn't get our turtles racing yet, but she enjoyed seeing how it moved and experimenting with giving it stronger tugs. She was also inspired to make her own turtle zipline!
Her idea worked well! She had some fun playing around with this and trying different heights for her zipline. I loved how much this activity engaged her and got her thinking!
Verdict: This month's Kiwi Crate was really great! My daughter loved the activities and I was pleased to see how it sparked her creativity and encouraged her to learn and explore on her own! She loved making extra scenes for her puppet show and it was fun to see her test out different ways to get her turtle to move around. The zip line was pretty cool! This was another well-organized box with fun and engaging educational activities. We really love this subscription!
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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