Atlas Crate is a subscription box for kids from parent company KiwiCo. This box is designed to spark the curiosity and sense of adventure in children ages 6-11 and help them become citizens of the world. Each month Atlas Crate will deliver materials and instructions to provide hands-on experiences to help kids develop their sense of cultural awareness.
FYI! This box is featured in our Returning to Learning back-to-school guide. Take a look at our subscription recommendations to see how they can help make your life easier during this unique school year.
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/month Atlas Crate box, for 6-11-year-olds.
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 Atlas Crate
The Subscription Box: Atlas Crate
The Cost: $19.95 per month + free shipping. Save with longer subscriptions.
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 about the world.
Ships to: The U.S. for free, Canada for $3.95 per month, and worldwide from $4.95-$6.95
Atlas Crate January 2021 "Nepal" Review
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This month we are traveling to Nepal and this airmail envelope is full of information for us. On the bottom of the envelope, there is a list of what is included in our crate and a fun "Atlas Quest" to complete using our newfound knowledge after exploring this month's country.
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In our first box, which was based on the world, we received an Adventure Book that contained cards for each of the continents and we are able to add to it each month as we receive cards for each of the new countries. They also provide a sticker for us to add to it as well which is a fun way to track our travels! Everything in this box is incredibly organized and nicely packaged making it easy to locate it all.
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The cards for our adventure book are bright, vibrant, and they are full of information about Nepal. The facts they share are always super interesting and provide some great discussion points! This month we also learned about Mount Everest and the Newar People.
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They always include some "do" pages and this month we have a recipe for Sikarni, a yogurt dessert that is spiced with cardamom along with some instructions for making our own Wind-Horse flags.
Activity #1: Bagh Chal
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The first activity in this box was a game called Bagh Chal. I think it is so fun when they include a game from the country we are exploring. It's such a fun piece of culture that you might not typically hear about. The instructions were all clearly illustrated and written out for us on this little page as well as some interesting facts about our game.
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We received a little game board and several small foam tigers and goats.
First, they had to figure out who was tigers and who was goats by hiding one of each in one player's hands and having the other player select one.
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Tigers get placed in all four corners, then the goat player has to add goats to the board on each turn or move them if they have already placed all of their goats. There are lines on the board that you follow and the tigers have a goal of capturing goats by jumping over them into a blank space. The goats have to try and surround the tigers so that they aren't able to make any moves. We had some fun playing this and they caught on pretty quickly!
Activity #2: Fluffy Yak
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The next activity was to make a fluffy little mountain-climbing yak. They explained how important yaks are to the people of Nepal and all of the many ways they utilize them.
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The first step was for my daughter to divide the fur into 8 equal sections. Then she wove three sections into the center holes on the piece of tan felt.
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Then she prepared the foam frame for his body and placed the felt on top fitting it into place using foam stickers to hold it together.
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Then she added some more fur and prepared and attached the head.
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Lastly, she added some teeny tiny pom poms to the blanket and then secured it over her yak's back with an elastic.
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Here she is with her cute yak. She was supposed to trim the ends of the fur to make it look a bit more polished, but she wanted to keep it long for some reason.
Activity #2 Part 2: Yak Zipline
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Since yaks climb mountains, they provided an extra activity where we created a zipline for our yak.
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The first step was to prepare the pulley. I put a foam sticker around the base of the stick and then tied the smallest cord to the gray circle before adding an orange foam donut to the other side. Then I stuck the stick through, removed the backing from the orange donut and slid the other gray circle over the top.
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Then I popped out the foam lift and added a sticker and three metal rings to it before closing that hole up with another sticker. I put the straw holder pieces into place and then slid the two straws in on either side. Then I used the medium cord and tied my mountain to a cabinet knob.
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I used the long cord to connect the mountain and the lift by threading it through the straws, then our yak sat right on top of the lift. I pulled out a bit of the cord from underneath our yak and attached that to the pulley.
The idea was to pull it taut and then use the cord at the top of the pulley to spin the pulley around so the yak "climbed" the mountain. Ours would actually only go backward for some reason, so I might need to rethread it through the straws. They included a few "climbing tips" on the back of our instructions, too. This was a cool way to utilize our new little yak!
Verdict: Learning about Nepal in this month's Atlas Crate box was pretty fun! This is not one of the typical countries you learn about, so even I learned a lot of new things this month! My daughter loves her fluffy yak and I was impressed with the way it was made. We all also enjoyed learning and playing the game of Bagh Chal. While the yak was just plain cute, I thought it was great the way that they emphasized its importance in Nepalese culture and managed to make it a fun activity as well. The box overall was well organized and the instructions were clear and easy to follow making this a great open-and-go box for some educational fun!
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 more of our Atlas Crate reviews, all of our KiwiCo reviews, and the best subscription boxes for kids!
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