Her 1st Kiwi Crate!
Shaylen turned 5 years old on September 7th. As a special gift, I thought it'd be neat to try out Kiwi Crate. This is how the company describes it...
Our Story
Kiwi Crate was built out of a passion for hands-on fun that encourages creativity and curiosity in children. I had a deep appreciation for these projects, but often found that my greatest intentions fell short. It was tough to find the time to come up with engaging hands-on activities, let alone get the materials.
So, as I started to develop creative projects with my kids, I thought, “why not share them with friends, who are also busy?” At playdates, the kids had a bunch of fun, and the parents appreciated having all of the materials and inspiration for the projects provided. Several parents mentioned, "I wish I could do this at home with my kids!"
Kiwi Crate was created to fulfill that wish and to celebrate kids’ natural creativity and curiosity. We want to make it fun, easy, and delightful to spend time building, exploring and creating together. Since its inception, the Kiwi Crate team has grown. We've added creative parents who dream up the projects, valued experts who review them, and a community of kid testers who keeps us on our toes and ensures the projects are fun and engaging.
We love working on Kiwi Crate and cherish the involvement that our kids and friends have in bringing the product to life. We're excited about the opportunity to help provide these types of experiences for your family to share too.
Here's Shaylen excited to open it up!
Voila!
As you can tell, Kiwi Crate's mascot is a little bird, named Kiwi.
Let's get started on our 1st Kiwi Crate review! It is recommended for children ages 4-8.
Every Kiwi Crate includes two age-appropriate fun activities. Here you can see that a nice pair of scissors was included. It's the little details that are important!
Here is the 1st activity, called "Marble Run." The card to the left has simple instructions for the kids to follow. Great way to teach sequential order (and to follow instructions to get a successful result!).
Here is Shaylen completing the activity.
And the final results! You can see the little marble at the bottom of the board. It travels the path of the brown logs down the river. Neat!
By the way, Shaylen has a 2-year-old sister who loves to "help" too. In case you didn't know, this company also creates a toddler box, called Koala Crate (ages 3-4). They also create Tinker Crate and Doodle Crate for kids aged 9-16+.
Anyway, here is Shaylen digging in to the 2nd project, called "My Forest Friends."
"That's not all folks!" In my opinion, the sparkling gem in all Kiwi Crates are the magazines they include. This Crate, Shaylen received a 17-page-long magazine, which is a mini-version of the Highlights magazine for kids.
Here's what Cassie had to say about the magazine:
"We also have a small magazine that has a story, draw-it-yourself section, info about hibernation, DIY build-your-own burrow, a picture that has animals at the bottom and you have to find where they belong, woodland hunt where you find hidden items, build-your-own binocular instructions, a diagram of a beaver lodge, maze, how to make wild animal trail mix, and at the end, you can make an animal mask! 17 pages long - very neat!"
As if you can't tell already, Shaylen LOVED it! Cassie said everything was so very simple, age-appropriate, and the materials were all high quality. She said that Kiwi Crate thought out every detail and made sure the children (and parents) weren't overwhelmed with frustration.
How cool?! It's an awesome treat to give your kids, nieces, nephews, and/or grandchildren a way to spend their days inside completing brain-stimulating projects.
To try it out, go to Kiwi Crate's website.
Any other questions, please feel free to contact me on Facebook!
Allison
