Lovevery Play Kit Review: “The Analyst” January 2025

Lovevery is a subscription box created by child development experts to deliver age-appropriate play products to stimulate your child's growing mind. Each stage of development requires a different approach to play to best suit your baby and his/her expanding mind, and Lovevery is here to provide the tools, taking the guesswork out of how to play and interact with your baby to give them what they need for each crucial stage.

There are six $80 boxes available for purchase starting at age 0 to 12 months. These boxes ship every 2 months:

• The Looker Play Kit for weeks 0-12,
• The Charmer Play Kit for months 3-4,
• The Senser Play Kit for months 5-6,
• The Inspector Play Kit for months 7-8,
• The Explorer Play Kit for months 9-10,
• The Thinker Play Kit for months 11-12

There are four $120 boxes available for purchase for ages 13-24 months. The selection has changed slightly since the last time we reviewed Lovevery in 2020. These boxes ship every 3 months:

• The Babbler Play Kit for months 13, 14, 15,
• The Adventurer Play Kit for months 16, 17, 18,
• The Realist Play Kit for months 19, 20, 21,
• The Companion Play Kit for months 22, 23, 24

Also new since we last reviewed Lovevery are an extended selection of $120 Play Kits for older toddlers, starting with 2-year-olds:

• The Helper Play Kit for months 25, 26, 27,
• The Enthusiast Play Kit for months 28, 29, 30,
• The Investigator Play Kit for months 31, 32, 33,
• The Free Spirit Play Kit for months 34, 35, 36

For three-year-olds:

• The Observer Play Kit for months 37, 38, 39,
• The Stortyteller Play Kit for months 40, 41, 42,
• The Problem Solver Play Kit for months 43, 44, 45,
• The Analyst Play Kit (that's this one!!) for months 46, 47, 48

And finally, for four-year-olds:

• The Connector Play Kit for months 49, 50, 51
• The Examiner Play Kit for months 52, 53, 54
• The Persister Play Kit for months 55, 56, 57
• The Planner Play Kit for months 58, 59, 60

This is a review of The Analyst Box, suitable for three year olds (months 46, 47, and 48 of age, for those still counting).

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 Lovevery

The Subscription Box: Lovevery

The Cost: Play Kits are priced at $40 per month. Kits for babies arrive every 2 months for $80; kits for toddlers arrive every 3 months for $120. Save 10% when you prepay for multiple kits in your subscription.

The Products: Stimulating play products for each developmental stage of your child.

Ships to: The US and Canada for free

Meet Your Reviewers

I have two daughters—the one this box is intended for is the "little sister" of our family, she's 3 years and 7 months old, or almost 46 months. Her older sister is six years old. We are an outdoors-loving family who spends a ton of time in our yard and the nearby park/woods. We also put a lot of time in drawing and creating. Our family has a variety of toy types including a small, eclectic village of peg dolls and wooden environment pieces like trees and mountains; they also have some plastic space ships and a karaoke machine and other such noisy toys. Balance!

Lovevery "The Analyst" Play Kit Review

Each box comes with tons of information about your Play Kit, common themes of development for kids your child's age, and ideas for play outside of what's provided in the box. It's all sent together in the Play Guide. We briefly subscribed to Lovevery a couple of years ago and have gotten a ton of use out of the toys (we still do, years later). I've known this since Day 1: Lovevery is created by experts and those experts don't gatekeep! Let's get into the toys for this age group.

This folded sheet gives info on materials, warnings, and some extra instructions for the sewing kit.

Pattern Match Boats & Cards Set

This first activity includes a peg board, wooden pieces, and a series of cards that show all the parts in different color combinations. Your child is meant to translate the combos in the 2D images to 3D model form. I can say as an adult it's a really appealing pastime! For little sister, I got her setup with this activity with minimal instruction to see what she would pick up on by herself. Piecing the boats together was appealing to her, but she hasn't connected with discerning the details of which color goes where. She's more interested in having the peg dolls interact, making voices for them and building out scenarios. She brought the boats to the wooden pond scene we have. That's wonderful! She can play with them however she likes and we can try again in with the cards a couple of weeks.

Stackable Fraction Cups & Visual Recipe Cards

My kids are always game to help out in the kitchen, and while I invite them in to join me often, it is NOT convenient, quick, nor tidy to have small kitchen helpers. I'm playing the long game of sacrificing my own convenience now to build familiarity and comfort in the kitchen for them later in life. I fully recognize that not every parent has the bandwidth for this, and I respect that. Regardless of how often your kid helps out in the kitchen, this set is extremely clever and conducive to kid-led "cooking." The measuring cups are designed to visually showcase the math of measurements. The coordinating book shows photos of an actual child and parent working on a recipe, and what they're making is one of the three recipes we're provided. Using these tools you can let your child take the lead on making granola bars, pancakes, or yogurt parfaits. They're all pretty low-stakes recipes, and create an awesome opportunity for some autonomy with a real-life task.

Color Theory Puzzle

This color theory puzzle is a huge hit for us. It's visually striking and very inviting. We don't have a play room in our small home, so it goes a long way for us to have developmentally enriching toys that are also pleasing to the eye. There's no right or wrong way to "solve" this puzzle—it's just about color exploration—and the open-ended nature of it is perfection for a three-year-old whose wild independence is burgeoning, but who is easily frustrated by tricky end-goals. Little sister is working with color mixing in preschool this month, so she was happy to point out some familiar color combinations. Big sister is also very much enjoying creating gradients and contrasting patterns alike. Both kids revisit this puzzle again and again.

First Sewing Kit

Lovevery is a Montessori-based box, so you can count on seeing themes of real-world experience in the activities provided. And, here they've nailed it again. My kids are relentlessly curious about sewing—they see me occasionally sewing buttons back onto shirts and DIYing their Halloween costumes, and they want in on the action. It's one of the many endeavors (like cooking) that I know will only benefit them if I could conjure the patience to teach them, but so far I've fended them off for fear we'd lose needles around the house. So, it feels perfect that Lovevery is providing them the opportunity!

In this kit we're provided three reusable cloth rounds with holes punched in different designs. We press their desired design into the simple embroidery hoop (I'll point out that a typical embroidery hoop is wooden with a small metal screw to tighten it—aka splinters and small parts, yikes!) and then use the wide, blunt needle to create designs in the existing holes. There are lots of possibilities! Both my kids were able to thread the needle with the colorful twine. I helped them knot the end, and they embroidered away. I made the mistake of providing a too-long piece of twine at first (in the photos above) and it got a bit tangled. I then dug up the instructions and saw that they suggest doubling the twine—good idea. We'll restart there and work our way up to single twine.

Montessori Sensory Box

I saved this bit for last because it feels like an epic grand finale. This kit actually sends us a mystery box for parents to load up with items from around the house, and kids to stick their hands in, feel around, and guess what they are. It's a three-year-old's dream come true! They want mystery and adventure but they want safety and security, too. (This is my very non-scientific, extremely anecdotal claim.) As always, it's not a necessity but definitely a bonus that the box is well-made and gorgeous. It arrived with some of the other activities' boxes inside for shipping, and it comes with its own box of domino-like rectangles in different colors and materials.

You can see here that my kid is playing with ways to fit the rectangles on the top of the box. It's simply a second sensory activity that the box can be used for, not related to the mystery object aspect. Both my kids were really drawn to the weight and reflectiveness of the silver mental rectangles, and carried them around like tiny cell phones for a day. I can see a future where the fluffy red ones are used for a toy car wash, the orange ribbed ones are used for sand on a play beach, and so much more.

Verdict

Every single Lovevery box is an experience. It's incredibly special to explore these quality toys with my kids and behold how each and every one is thoughtfully engineered to tap into their exact developmental urges and needs. They're educational, they're open-ended for tons of play opportunities, and they're simply beautiful. They're accessible both to the age they're built for and older stages of development, too. If you're a family who values minimal toys with tons of uses, or participates in rotating their kid's toys like we do, this play set is one I'm certain we'll revisit again and again.

To Wrap Up

Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Yes! Before checking out, you'll input your due date or child's birthday, and if it fits within the 46, 47, 48 weeks age range, then The Analyst Play Kit will be your first box.

Value Breakdown: This box costs $120 with free shipping, which means that each of the 5 activity sets in the box has an average cost of $24. But the value is really much higher since most of the sets have multiple uses.

What do you think of Lovevery?

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