Kiwi Crate (from parent company KiwiCo) is a subscription box for children ages 5-8. It arrives every month with all the materials and instructions needed to complete 2-3 crafts centered around a theme, plus additional materials to help educate young learners!
KiwiCo offers boxes for different age groups: Cricket Crate is for 24-36-month-olds, Koala Crate is for 3-4-year-olds, Kiwi Crate is for 5-8-year-olds, and Doodle Crate and Tinker Crate are for 9-16+-year-olds. There really is something for every age with this company.
This review is of the $19.95 a month Kiwi Crate box, for 5-8-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 Kiwi Crate
The Subscription Box: Kiwi Crate
The Cost: Regular monthly subscription is $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: U.S. for free, Canada for $6.95 per month
Kiwi Crate February 2018 Review
At the top of our box was a cute little note welcoming us to the Kiwi Crate family. It opened up to show a little sticker chart that we could use to track all of our adventures with Kiwi Crate. We added our first sticker after we finished our activity, but we haven’t had a chance to color it in yet!
The back of our chart highlighted the fact that Kiwi Crate makes STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) accessible to children and what types of skills it can teach them.
The theme for this month was Arcade. This was the included booklet that showed us the various activities in our crate and provided instructions. The pictures were very clear, detailed and in color, and I liked that they provided a parts list for everything that should be in your crate!
On the back of this booklet was our sticker for this month’s project and their social media links.
Each month you get a Kiwi Explore! magazine that goes along with your crate’s theme. This started out with a little comic strip that incorporated some math into the storyline and then they provided a few pages of different activities. There was a drawing activity, a pinball maze and a few game ideas for a penny arcade. These were great extra activities that an older kid could easily do by themselves or fun for a younger kid to do with their parent.
Our first activity was building a claw. I was impressed with how sturdy the pieces were and how well everything was organized. The directions were easy to follow with pictures and step by step instructions. My daughter is only 3, so she really didn’t help much with the assembly, but she was very excited to watch me put it together. This had a lot of tiny parts so I think it would be difficult for a 5-year-old to do on their own, but an 8-year-old might be able to do it with just a little supervision and maybe some assistance tightening the bolts and putting on the rubber bands, which even I had a little trouble with.
The claw functioned easily and my daughter was able to operate it. Since it has rubber bands as one of the main working pieces I’m a little worried it won’t last that long, but luckily those can be easily replaced and they did include an extra. My daughter had fun picking up her toys with it and I’m thinking I can probably find a use for it around the house since I’m 36 weeks pregnant at the moment and am having a hard time bending down to pick things up off the floor.
The next activity in the crate was to make the little pom pom creatures that would become the prizes for our arcade game. This was easy enough to make and they turned out really cute! The only extra item we needed was some scissors to cut the strings. The googly eyes had sticky backs so we didn’t even have to mess with glue for this part. I loved the colored yarn that they provided- it was bright and fun!
Once we finished our pom pom guys there was a final activity of creating our actual arcade game box. This was a great way to repurpose the Kiwi Crate box and I think that you definitely need an adult for this step since you have to cut out pieces of the cardboard box (they even advise the child to get an adult - good thinking!).
We also needed scissors, glue, crayons, a plastic gallon bag, and tape. I loved that they included an option to either cut out colored designs or you could color your own because they had the exact same designs on the back in black and white. We did a mix of the two for our box design. Once we got it together it was fun to use the claw to grab out our pom pom guys. And then, of course, we moved on to socks and other objects we found around the house because, well, 3-year-olds.
Verdict: I really loved how everything in this box centered around a central theme and each activity addressed it in a different way. It was fun to create something together that was functional and could be turned into a game. There is a lot of flexibility in what else we can do with our arcade game, but it was great to have a starting point. I really liked the activities in the magazine too. Overall, this was a great crate - it was age appropriate, the product was something we can use over and over again, and it definitely addressed all aspects of STEAM as promised. At $19.95 plus free shipping, I think it was a great value for all of the supplies and activities we received.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? No, sign up now for the March box.
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Check out all of our Kiwi Crate reviews and the Kids Subscription Box Directory!
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