Kiwi Co is a monthly subscription box that sends you all of the supplies and instructions needed to complete themed crafts and projects each month, plus additional materials to help educate young learners! They offer boxes for different age groups including Cricket Crate for 24-36-month-olds, Koala Crate for 3-4-year-olds, Kiwi Crate for 5-8-year-olds, and Doodle Crate and Tinker Crate for 9-16+-year-olds.
They even offer one-time boxes that you can purchase separately, some of which are perfect for the upcoming holidays!
This review is of the one-time Santa's Sleigh Automaton Holiday Crate, for 7-16+ year-olds.
FYI - this box is currently sold out.
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 Santa's Sleigh Automaton
The Subscription Box: Santa's Sleigh Automaton
The Cost: $24.95 (currently on sale for $17.95)
BLACK FRIDAY DEAL: Save 60% off your first month! No coupon required, just use this link
The Products: Everything needed to create your own Santa's Sleigh Automaton for ages 7-16+
Ships to: U.S. for $4.95
Kiwi Crate Santa's Sleigh Automaton November 2018 Review
We received a nice color booklet full of information and instructions for our project. They tell us what we will be building and give us a nice introduction to automatons. I love that they relate it to real life!
They also feature a section that tells you exactly what should be in your crate which is helpful!
As per usual with Kiwi Co., the directions are clear, detailed and incredibly easy to follow due to the step by step instructions and pictures.
At the end of the booklet, they even go into further detail about what cams are in relation to our completed project. I love that the learning through these boxes is so hands-on!
I like that they send nice, quality wooden pieces for us to use! They feel sturdy and it makes our project feel just a bit more substantial. We laid out our pieces and got ready to begin.
First, we used the little foam stickers for the base of our sleigh. My daughter (4) was able to help with this part, which was great!
Then we added our smaller wooden pieces into our sleigh base and the foam pieces served to keep everything in place. I love how easily everything always fits together! They leave so little room for error that it makes the projects really enjoyable and frustration-free.
We used more foam pieces on the legs and slid everything in place and our sleigh was now standing.
This next part I loved! Mostly because my daughter is younger and this was a good reinforcement of skills, but she was responsible for finding the numbered circle (out of 4) that I needed.
Then she had to flip it over and find the red foam sticker that matched based on the rectangle cut out of each circle. Then we worked together to slide the circles onto our crank in number order. She was able to do most of this independently and it was a great opportunity for active learning!
Then we slid our crank into our base and added some square foam stickers (which I had my son find for me to practice his shapes!) and smaller circles to the ends of our crank so it wouldn't slide out of the base.
Next, we folded our little paper squares along the folds and added a foam rectangle sticker that had a hole in the center to the top. We placed it over the wheels on our crank and then slid a plastic rod down into it from the top of the sled. We repeated this for each of the four wheels.
Then we peeled off our white foam circles and stuck the straws through the top and slid those down over our plastic rods and adhered them to the base and tested out our crank. The rods would move up and down!
Now the fun part! Decorating our sleigh with all of the fun details! First was laying down our felt sheet of "snow" and then it was time to add our reindeer.
First, we set out all of our deer. They each had two sides. On one side there were spots marked for us to put the white foam stickers and the other side was our detailed and adorable side. We stuck the back of our reindeer to the back side of our plastic rods.
Then I just stuck the front of the reindeer to the piece of sticky foam that was exposed.
We did the same thing as with our reindeer for our sleigh, except first we had to stick Santa and his toy bag into his sleigh using foam circle stickers.
Once Santa was in place, we tied our string to his hands and then wove it between our reindeer to form our reins.
How cute is this so far?
For our background, they gave us these nice house silhouettes that we stuck on with more foam circle stickers.
We added snow and some trees and then it was complete and we could slide it into place behind our sled.
Our sleigh is a little wobbly, but they gave us a few troubleshooting tips and usually checking out one of those solves the problem! The kids were able to operate it by themselves too which was nice (my daughter moved it for the first video)! I told them we had to be gentle with it and they both did a great job.
We haven't started decorating for Christmas yet, but we found a nice place on the mantel to keep this for the season! It will be fun for the kids to tell everyone how we made it and for them to show people how it works.
Verdict: Kiwi Crate is one of our favorite subscriptions and this special Santa-themed project was the perfect activity to get us in the mood for the holidays! I love that we were able to create it together and both of my kids were so excited to see it move and make it move themselves. They are much younger than the targeted age range, but they were still able to help me put it together and were beyond excited to have this displayed in our home. Everything was so well organized and planned out just like their monthly boxes, so it was a stress-free activity with hardly any cleanup, which is always a plus to me! This box costs $29.90 ($24.95 + $4.95 shipping) and I think that it was definitely worth the learning experience we had creating our own Christmas decoration that we can admire and even play with all season long!
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? No, unfortunately, this box is now sold out. However, there are additional holiday one-time kits available here.
BLACK FRIDAY DEAL: Save 60% off your first month! No coupon required, just use this link
Coupon – Save 40% off your first month! No coupon required, just use this link!
Check out all of our Kiwi Crate reviews and more boxes for ages 5-8 in the Kids Subscription Box Directory!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
What do you think of Kiwi Crate?
Please do not enter your email address in the Name field or in the comment content. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *. Remember to post with kindness and respect. Comments with offensive language, cruelness to others, etc will not be approved. See our full comment policy here.