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 "Mission to Mars" Review September 2020
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Our theme for this month is Mission to Mars 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 they told us all about Mars and what it's like there, showed us some of the rovers, and even provided a fun waffle rover recipe.
My daughter enjoyed solving the rover riddle!
Mars Rover
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My daughter got to work assembling the back axel for our rover. This was as easy as adding all of these pieces in the order illustrated in our instructions.
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She added these rubber rings to form the tires once the rest of the pieces were in place.
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Then she began assembling the front axel in the same way, but with slightly different pieces. She finished off the axels with some small rubber rings to hold all of the components in place.
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Next, she placed the triangular wooden piece on top of the base of the rover and slid the flag pole into the holes to hold them together. Then she added a green foam circle and the small green plastic cylinder to the marked spot on the edge of the rover base.
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We stuck this green guide to the edge of the triangular piece and got ready to thread the string through.
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She followed the guide to thread the string through and pulled the strings taut before removing the flagpole.
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Then we added a spring and tied the string in a triple knot before cutting off the ends.
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Next, she slid the axels into place and used some clear rubber bands to secure them.
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The final step was to design our flag. They provided these two small scratch art rectangles for us to use. After she made her designs we slid them onto the flagpole and added them to our rover.
Here is her finished rover.
We tested out our rover and it took a few tries, for some reason our flag kept sliding down and getting caught in the wheels. Eventually, we got it going! Don't worry, it survived the fall!
Crater Course
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They provided several felt shapes and a felt mat along with some cardboard pieces with adhesive on the back to help us create some craters for our rover to go over.
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She worked on creating the layers by sticking the pieces on top of each other getting smaller as she got to the top.
Here is our Mars set up. Now it was time to see if the rover could make it over!
Again, it took a few tries, but it made it!
Since we were having some trouble getting our rover to move, we checked this sheet out and found that adding some olive oil to our strings really helped it move better!
Verdict: We had a lot of fun learning about Mars with this month's Kiwi Crate box! While our rover was a little tricky to get started, my daughter and I had fun testing it out together and I thought it was great how they even had a fun Mars crater course for us to make. My daughter especially loved that she got to be creative and design her own scratch art flag for her rover which is just one of those little things that this company knows kids will appreciate. As usual, everything was well organized and I loved how easy the directions were for my daughter to follow. This box was another winner 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!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
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