Atlas Crate is the newest subscription box 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 they will deliver materials and instructions to provide hands-on experiences to help them develop their sense of cultural awareness.
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, Tinker Crate for 9-16+-year-olds, and Atlas Crate for 6-11-year-olds. There really is something for every age with this company.
This review is of the $19.95 a 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
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Save 60% off your first month! No coupon required, just use this link
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: U.S. for free, Canada for $6.95 per month
Atlas Crate November 2018 Review
The country we explored this month was Italy and we received this envelope full of information. I love the greeting in another language and the detail of the string closure on the back, it makes it just a smidge more exciting being able to physically open this!
This envelope unfolded to show us a contents list and several pages to add to our Adventure Book. Everything in this box is incredibly organized and nicely packaged making it easy to locate it all!
We received this Adventure Book in our first box and this month they gave us an Italy sticker to add to the front of it. The rings of the book open up so that we can add more pages as we receive them.
Our first box was based on the World and contained cards for each of the continents. This time we were able to locate the continent in our book and add our pages behind it.
These cards are bright and vibrant and full of tons of information about Italy on each side.
They also included some unique activities like playing a game called Rota, a recipe for bruschetta and a Renaissance sculpting activity using a bar of soap!
The first activity in our box was to create a Calco Process artwork. We received all the supplies that we needed, other than some water for our paints. They included three different images that we could use to make our painting.
The first step was to pick one of the images to recreate. I chose the Colosseum and then gathered my carbon paper and watercolor paper. They included two of each so that we had enough to make two separate paintings. I placed my carbon paper shiny side down on my watercolor paper and placed my Colosseum picture on top facing up and secured all three sheets with the included clip (which they sent two of).
I used the wooden stylus that they gave us to trace all of the black lines on the picture. This was pretty time-consuming given how many lines there were and you can see I actually missed a whole line on the bottom. Whoops! I admit, I was not the neatest about my tracing and the stylus was a bit thick for some of the smaller lines, so it's a bit sloppy.
Next, I spread out our tissue paper to catch any messes (which worked really well since it had a waxy coating) and set up my watercolors and got to work painting.
I thought it turned out pretty well! This was definitely a fun way to recreate an image and a perfect project to teach about the Calco Process.
I love that they even included some facts about carbon paper and how this process worked during Renaissance times!
Our next project was to make a DaVinci's Pizzeria Automaton. There were a lot of steps, but they were so easy to follow and they separated them into sections which made it even easier.
First, we got started building the base. I inserted the straw pieces into the holes and then assembled our faux brick walls by just sliding them together at the slots. They also included little foam stickers to help keep them from sliding out.
Next, we applied the foam stickers to the spots that were marked and folded everything up to create little pop-up pieces.
We added our wooden rod through the center and secured it with several foam circles that would form our automaton. We used more foam stickers to help stick everything in place on our oven.
Next, we used the air dry clay to make a mini pizza and stuck it on the end of a wooden rod and added it to our base and finished it with a sideways wheel so that it would move when we turned our crank.
Here is our pizza in motion. And yes, my son called it a quesadilla. Haha.
Then, we added a nice flame to another rod and secured it over the other wheel using a foam rectangle so that our flame would move as well.
Here is our pizza spinning and our flame bouncing.
We added some final details like another flame, a brick top for our oven, a chef, and even some cotton ball smoke coming out of our chimney and DaVinci's Pizzeria was complete!
How fun is our pizzeria automaton? A great learning project that turned into a fun and very unique toy for the kids!
They included a lot of extra facts and information related to our pizzeria including how it works and a bit about DaVinci's designs. They also included some great pizza facts!
Verdict: This Atlas Crate was such a fun and unique way to explore Italy! I love that they touched on two of my favorite things to come from Italy - art and pizza, but in such unique ways. The Calco Process was a nice, almost foolproof Art method for kids that would help build their confidence in their artistic skills whether they enjoy Art or not. I think the pizzeria would satisfy almost any kid with the cool spinning pizza and flickering flames and I love that they also made it such an educational activity by turning it into an Automaton. What a great way to introduce them to DaVinci! Overall, this was a fun and educational box that I think was worth the $19.95 cost of the box plus free shipping.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Yes, it is likely since this is a fairly new subscription, but keep this in mind- from Kiwi Co:
Crates are assigned each month based on availability and your crate history - not all subscribers receive the same theme each month.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Save 60% off your first month! No coupon required, just use this link
Check out all of our KiwiCo reviews and more boxes for ages 5-8 and ages 9-12 in the Kids Subscription Box List!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
What do you think of Atlas Crate?
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