Koala Crate is the toddler subscription box offering from KiwiCo, designed for hands-on learning and fun every month!
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 the $19.95 a month Koala Crate, for Pre-K kids ages 2-4.
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 Koala Crate from KiwiCo
The Subscription Box: KiwiCo Koala Crate
The Cost: $19.95 a month + free shipping. Save with longer subscriptions.
The Products: 2-3 fun DIY projects for you to do with your preschooler!
Ships to: The US for free, Canada for $3.95 per month, worldwide from $4.95-$6.95.
KiwiCo Koala Crate "Carnival" Review
After a 2 week "reset" our school is back in session, which means I no longer have to work from home. While I enjoyed the peace of mind of being safe at home, I found my kids (and I) really struggled with Distance Learning, and am happy to be back in the old brick building, even if that looks different than it used to. Last month's box had come just in time to keep my kids occupied while I worked from home, but this time I got to join in on the fun – and with the perfect theme: carnival! See how this month's projects turned out below.
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This month's theme was "carnival" and though we didn't get to do an entire carnival themed day, (we received this after school – the day before Thanksgiving) I was happy to see that all of the activities could be done more than once, so a carnival-themed day is on the calendar for December 12th. Per usual, we received a well laid out pamphlet describing and illustrating the necessary instructions to complete each activity with helpful hints along the way. All of this month's projects were easy for the boys, except for blowing up the duck pond, so I was able to sit on the sidelines and watch while they worked.
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Each month the Koala Crate "Imagine!" magazine is included. This booklet contains information about carnivals, along with a Kellan and Ella story, a DIY project, and suggested books to fit into the carnival theme. While we don't own any of the books that were suggested, we discovered if you type the book title and author into the YouTube search engine, you can sometimes get lucky and watch a read-along – which the boys love.
Hank takes charge and reads the booklet while encouraging Charlie to practice his sight words. They both enjoy discovering what kind of adventures the gang gets into, and seeing them work together makes my heart happy!
Charlie loves mazes, puzzles, and quick games, so he nabbed this "Find the Difference" page up right away. A couple were a little tricky, but there was no fooling Charlie!
Play Pretzels
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The first project this month was a simple and fun one – roll and twist clay to make pretend pretzels...complete with glitter salt! We received air-dry clay, glitter, and a mat.
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Our family loves play-doh and we play with it often, but this air-dry clay is sooo much cooler! The texture is light and soft but is easier to shape and manipulate than traditional play-doh. The kids loved rolling it out over and over again to practice their pretzel twists. The easy instructions included on the mat really help them figure out how to shape a pretzel, and while I have made homemade ones in the past – the fold-over technique was one I haven't used, and found it way easier than how I made them. Once the pretzels were shaped, we added our glitter "salt" and let them sit out overnight to dry. (We were having so much fun rolling out our pretzels, that dad had to come and make one too!)
Horse Race
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No carnival would be complete without a horse race now, would it? In years past we have made it a tradition to go to the fair up by my mom's house and pig out on food, ride the rides, watch the barrel races, and even play the duck pond game, but because of the pandemic, we were unable to make that happen this year. No worries though...I've already got my food list started for next year! Until then, we received a cardboard and foam horse-race game to create.
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To create our game, Hank read the directions while Charlie organized the materials they needed to use. After they added their cardboard strips and foam rectangles, they each built a horse. Once the racers were ready, they added them to the track and hit the cardboard with the mallet to get the horses to race down the track. I had no idea how much fun this simple game would be, and we literally had 100 races. Because Hank is older than the designed age for this box, we went a step further and incorporated some probability and graphing into this activity, and found that Flynn (the brown horse) won 68% of the time. Sorry Pepper!
Duck Pond
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Our last activity was probably the most exciting because we received a decent-sized blow-up pool, foam ducks, and a fishing pole!
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This project was easy to prepare since all we really needed to do was blow up the pool, add water, the ducks, and tie the string onto the fishing pole. Who knew a little blow-up pool would keep these boys entertained for such a long time! We all had fun just trying to catch the ducks initially, but as time went on, we opted to play a game of memory as all the ducks have a shape on the backs. Find 2 of the same shape and you have a match. It became a bit more of a challenge when you rocked the water as you were playing...I'm terrible at memory so I didn't get a single match, and neither did my kids...Dustin ended up getting every single match, smoking us all!
Verdict: This Koala Crate was really fun and although it was a bit more simple than previous months, I think my kids enjoyed this box the most, and surprisingly got the most out of it educationally. The kids were able to complete almost all of the steps of these projects on their own and adding more advanced strategies to some of the activities for Hank really had him thinking. We all enjoyed playing with the air-dry clay, and this makeshift carnival turned our regular old Wednesday night into a fun-packed, family adventure. We can't wait to see what theme next month will bring.
All of the included projects came with high-quality materials, were very well-curated, and were educational as well as fun. My kids not only learned about carnivals, but math, reading, fine motor skills, and strategy, all while having a great time. I feel this is extremely important and worth the $19.95!
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? 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 Koala Crate by KiwiCo reviews and the best subscription boxes for toddlers and kids!
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