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
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 March 2019 Review
The country we explored this month was Australia and we received this envelope full of information. I love the greeting 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 Australia 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 Australia on each side. I always enjoy the fun facts page, but this month the kids were especially excited to learn about these exotic Australian creatures!
The other pages included some activities such as instructions on how to play a game called Kolap and a recipe for Anzac Biscuits. They also had a really cool page on fiber sculptures and we tried to make our own using the instructions!
I started out trying to make a sculpture of a dog using paper and tape, but then I decided it looked more like a crocodile after we wrapped it in yarn. It's not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but my 2-year-old was satisfied! It really makes it all that much more impressive to see what these sculpture artists are able to achieve!
The first activity in our box this month was to make a hopping kangaroo. The directions were detailed and easy to follow and the cardboard pieces were very sturdy and even included a wooden tail.
First, it was just a matter of using the dowel and sticking on the legs and tail in the correct order using the small circles in between the pieces.
Then, I stuck this brown foam sticker in between the two legs to hold them together.
Next, I used the small clear rubber bands to wrap around the endpoints on the legs and tail.
Then, I slid the black suction cup into the brown holder and slid it into the space between the legs and tail.
Then, I added the body pieces to either side and the end pieces of the suction cup holder stuck through the small rectangles in the side of the kangaroo body. I used a clear rubber band to wrap around those and secure it and added a small black rubber ring to the dowel to secure that piece as well. Then our kangaroo was complete!
They even provided this little cardboard "grass" piece for us to use as our launch pad for hopping. We set the kangaroo on top and then pushed down until the suction cup stuck to the grass piece. The first few times, he hopped beautifully and the kids loved it, but as soon as I tried to get a video, this little guy got stage fright and refused to perform! But really, after those first few times, we didn't have much luck getting him to hop! I'm not sure what the issue was, I went back through the directions and checked to see that it was all correct, but the only thing I can figure is that the suction cup was sticking too strongly because he just sat there forever! I even tried adding extra rubber bands, which was one of the suggestions to make him jump higher, but that didn't work either. I have reviewed a lot of boxes and activities from this company and this is the first thing that has ever failed, so I think I'm willing to take the blame for this one since I know how well thought out these activities usually are!
On the back were some great facts about kangaroos. Even though he didn't work as planned, my kids still loved having a kangaroo to play with and had fun learning about them. This box is designed for children who are older than mine though, so I have to wonder if they would appreciate this activity, especially if they had trouble getting theirs to work as we did!
The next project was to make our very own coral reef which was such a fun and unique idea! Of course, we had to relate this to Nemo and Dory, which made it even more fun for my kids.
They provided these little cups and three tubes of liquid watercolor for us. This is when I appreciated the great packaging because our watercolors had leaked a little bit in their bag, but since they were packaged separately, this didn't affect anything other than getting my fingers a bit messy! I recycled our packing paper and set up our watercolors on that.
Then we got to work adding colors to all of these little pieces of coral. One side was shiny while the other was just paper and we painted on the paper side by using the cotton swabs they provided. This was such a great method to paint with little mess and it really allowed us to experiment with mixing and blending our colors. You can see the kids were really into it and I would definitely like to use this method for painting projects in the future!
Look how pretty they turned out! I did the two on the left, but my kids did all the rest.
While we set those aside to dry, we added our sea creatures stickers to the sheer piece of paper they gave us.
Then, I inserted the paper into this nice thick base piece so that the end flaps hung out of the bottom.
I used the rectangle stickers to stick the flaps down and hold them in place.
Then we added these little foam pieces with slits in the center to the base in front of our sea creatures.
The last step was to add our coral into the slits on the foam pieces. We were supposed to wait 24 hours, but I found that they were almost dry to the touch much sooner. I love that they are just held in place by the foam pieces and can be moved around at any time to change the look of our coral reef. It makes for such a fun decoration and since it isn't huge, it's easy to find a place to display it!
They also provided some great facts about coral reefs on the back of our booklet that we enjoyed reading.
Verdict: Atlas Crate is such a fun subscription to provide kids with a glimpse into another country and culture! Australia was a fun one to explore and I thought the activities were creative and unique. While our kangaroo didn't go so well, it was definitely fun the few times that it did work! The coral reef was a nice relaxing project and I think it turned out nicely. I imagine that an older child would have a lot more fun being creative and working on the design a bit more, because I know I certainly enjoyed it! For $19.95 plus free shipping, I think this box always delivers on providing well-planned activities that help give children a taste of other cultures in a fun and educational way!
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Yes, it is likely, 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.
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!
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