Tadpole Crate “Color Mixing” Toddler Box – October 2018 Review

Tadpole Crate, previously called “Cricket 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: Tadpole Crate is for 0-36 months, Koala Crate for ages 3-4, Kiwi Crate for ages 5-8, Atlas Crate for ages 6-11, and Doodle Crate and Tinker Crate are for ages 9-16 and up.

This review is of the $19.95 a month Tadpole Crate for kids ages 0-36 months.

This box was sent to us for review purposes. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

About Tadpole Crate

The Subscription Box: Tadpole Crate

The Cost: $19.95 a month + free shipping

The Products: 2-3 fun and developmentally appropriate projects, a magazine, online resources and a board book for you and your toddler!

Ships to: US

Tadpole Crate "Color Mixing" October Box Review

My family was excited to review this month's Tadpole Crate! KiwiCo's teaching methodology perfectly aligns with how my kids learn today. My son is in early pre-school and goes to a school focused on hands-on and project-based learning. Age-wise, he’s in between the Tadpole and Koala crates, so this was the perfect opportunity to see which is a better fit for him. His big sister, my 2nd-grader, was happy to assist her little brother with the projects.

This month’s theme is “Color Mixing”. Kids can have fun observing and mixing colors and are introduced to cause and effect through the simple and age-appropriate projects.

Tadpole Crate always includes Wonder Magazine, which is full of information, tips, and fun activities related to the month’s theme.

The magazine highlights the activities, includes information on how to engage your children, and gives additional learning resources. I recommend looking at the instructions and gathering all the materials for the project before engaging the kids.

Wonder Magazine also includes additional DIY activities, which sometimes require supplies not included in the box. It’s a great way to continue the fun after the projects are complete.

This Tadpole Crate includes two fun and engaging projects and a bonus project: Making Colors, Color Games, and Watercolor Art. Included are detailed instructions and everything needed for all 3 projects.

Here are the materials for the Making Colors project. It includes plastic beakers, colored squares, and a stir stick. You just need water and a tray if you’re concerned about spills.

Here are the materials for the Color Games project. It includes game cards, felt circles and a color cube.

Let’s get started with Making Colors!

In this activity, children fill beakers with water, add colored squares, and watch the water change colors. A second beaker is filled with water and another colored square. In the third beaker, you mix the two colored beakers of water and create a new color!

My son enjoyed stirring in the colored squares in the water. He did try drinking the water, so I suggest keeping a good eye out. He thought it was juice!

When mixing two colors to create a new color, he got really excited and screamed out the new color. It was like magic!

Even my daughter was interested in the Making Colors project. She wanted to try new color combinations and confirm her understanding of how colors are combined to create other colors. Eventually, the kids ended up mixing all the colors into one beaker so we moved on to the next activity—Color Games!

In this activity, you can choose between two games, or play both Color Bingo and Color Memory.

First, we played Color Bingo, where you roll the color cube and match the color of the game card with the felt circle.

This game was pretty easy. I tried to get my soon to play Color Memory, but he couldn’t grab the concept. Soon the kids were ready to move on to the next activity–Color Hop.

Wonder Magazine suggested additional energy-burning activities, so we tried playing Color Hop! In the game, you lay the felt circles on the floor, roll the color cube, and the kids run and jump on the circles that match the color cube.

I think my son enjoyed this game the most! After burning off some energy, the kids were ready to wind down, but we had one last project to complete–the bonus Watercolor Art.

This bonus activity included all the materials and instructions to make watercolor art. It contained 3 pieces of watercolor paper and colored paper shapes.

For this project, the kids wet the watercolor paper and applied the colored paper shapes. My son lost interest after applying a few hearts, so it was time to wrap up this Tadpole Crate and grab a snack.

Tadpole Crate also includes a board book every month that goes along with the theme of the box. In Olive’s Colorful Day, Olive the frog wakes up feeling gray. Throughout the story, my son and I helped add color to Olive’s day until she felt bright and cheery!

Verdict: This Tadpole Crate by KiwiCo was a lot of fun! The Color Mixing activities were developmentally appropriate for my son. I saw skills mastered (like identifying colors) and other skills we can continue to develop (like finding matches). Similar to other KiwiCo boxes, I found the materials in the Tadpole Crate to be high-quality and sturdy. The project instructions were clear, age-appropriate, and easy to follow. Best of all, my kids loved completing the projects and had the most fun doing the Color Hop activity. Since many of the items are reusable, we can continue having fun even after the projects are complete. The cost of this box, $19.95, is a small price to pay for a box chock full of fun projects and quality materials!

To Wrap Up:

Can you still get this box if you sign up today? No, sign up now for the November box.

Coupon – Save 40% off your first month! Just use this link.

Check out all of our KiwiCo Crate reviews and the Kids Subscription Box Directory!

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