January 2016 Little Thinker Box Subscription Box Review

Kidable Adventures Little Thinker Box is a preschool subscription box for ages 3-6.  The Little Thinker Box includes four components: Read, Create, Explore and Learn. The Learn component is divided into three different levels: Head Start, PreK and Kindergarten. Choose the level that’s right for your child!

The January theme was Post Office.

The box is always packed in a really neat manner — the tissue makes for a nice presentation, and the lesson segments are explained well in the introductory letter to parents.

Although the packages no longer come grouped in plastic bags by components, you could still easily do a component per week, or you could work through them all on a rainy weekend.

All the actual instructions plus the parental guidance is included, along with all the supplies! The Read, Create, Explore, and Learn format was designed based on customer and expert feedback.  I like the bit of structure it lends to the boxes — the numerous activities are more manageable conceptualized in smaller bites.

Read


This month’s book was The Post Office Book: Mail and How It Moves ($6.99) by Gail Gibbons. This book contained lots of informative illustrations which prompted my son to ask lots of questions. I really enjoyed reading it with him.

I also liked that the folks behind Little Thinker Box included some questions to ask once you’ve finished reading the book with your child. The questions were listed on the information card above.

Create

The Create portion of the box had 3 main activities: decorate a mail bag, boxes and postcards.

After writing “mail” on one side of the bag, my son decided to draw a map on the other. After his map was complete, he used the enclosed stickers to place the animals in the “appropriate” habitat: elephants in Africa, turtles in the farm and red dolphins in the Amazon River. I enjoyed listening to his descriptions very much.

Next, my son made an executive decision: instead of turning the boxes into mail boxes, he was going to decorate them and deliver them to the stuffed animals we had around the house; these newly decorated boxes were going to be Christmas presents for his sister’s stuffed animals. He happily got to work on his decorations, pretending that the animals depicted on the stickers were actually jokesters. He delighted in telling me the knock knock jokes they were creating.

My son opted not to decorate the postcards. He told me that the postcards contained very important information and did not require pictures.

Explore

The Explore segment encourages creative play.  This month my son got to pretend he was a letter carrier. He was very excited!

He made sure his sister’s stuffed animals received their Christmas packages. Then he happily delivered the very important postcards to his father and sister.

Learn

The learn segment brings some additional structure to the theme, focusing the kids on a school-style workbook.  It’s a great tool for focusing the fun in a way that translates well to a more formal academic setting.

The activities this month included number sequencing, alphabet sequencing, letter finding, letter sound recognition, comparisons, addition, reorganizing letters to create words and some coloring activities that reinforced the post office theme. The activities ranged in difficulty from Headstart to PreK to Kindergarten, so children could pick and choose which activities were best suited to their own developmental needs.

I love this box and all the updates! The new format is solidly organized and well-planned, the included snack is a nice touch, and, most important, my preschooler was engaged and thinking the whole time we were doing the activities.  Although my son and I tried to complete this box quickly for the sake of this review, this box is designed to provide activities over the course of a month. I’m sure that this month’s postal service dress up outfit will be worn for a long time after the month ends.

Visit Little Thinker Box to find out more or to subscribe!