Koala Crate Review & Coupon – Starry Night

Koala Crate is a monthly subscription box from KiwiCo for preschoolers ages 3 to 4. Koala Crate was created to encourage hands-on learning and fun. Activities are designed to be developmentally appropriate and enriching while also engaging, fun, and universally appealing.

This month’s Koala Crate theme was Starry Night!  Like every Koala Crate, this box comes with a variety of supplies to create a project, perform activities, and fun games, all geared for preschool.  Because the box is targeted to a younger audience than the other boxes in the Kiwi family, parts are usually self-adhesive and pre-cut or scored.

There are two books that will come in your Koala Crate.  Imagine! magazine is “a play and learn magazine” made for you and your preschooler to explore together. My son loves it!  I like that the instruction booklet is separate from imagine!, so you can preview the activity while your child works on the activities in the booklet.

There’s a fun story to help introduce your child to the theme of the box.  The same group of friendly characters is featured each month, and the familiar faces encourage engagement.  We get the box for our four year old, but our six year old usually helps him read through the story, so it’s fun for everyone! The activities are a little more difficult and there are more critical thinking activities in the magazine than there were when the box started.  The level seems appropriate for the target audience of 3 to 4 year olds.  Some help is needed with reading the story and the instructions for each activity, but our four year old can complete the activities unassisted.

The activities are geared to preschool kids, with lots of finds, matching, and counting activities.  Counting, color and pattern recognition, and other basic skills and insights are emphasized.  The hidden pictures page is one of our favs!

  Our four year old has fun doing the puzzles, and our 6 year old helps him with the reading parts! Our son completes Imagine! cover-to-cover. 

It is replete with picture finds, spot the difference, mazes, and similar games geared to pre and early readers.

The second booklet is the instructions & inspiration book. This gives an overview of all the items in the crate, the 3 primary activities, and the messiness level and required grownup assistance needed. Every activity tells you the required materials, engagement questions to ask your child, step by step instructions, and play ideas.  Even though most crafts are self-explanatory, they have helpful illustrations and clear instructions, so it’s hard to go wrong.

meteor toss:  This game was simple both to make and to play.

We began by wrapping a light ball in a silky scarf, and then tying it with a ribbon.

We had even dressed appropriately, wearing our Starry Night Cookie Monster shirt!

glowing moon.  Super-simple, and a little bit messy, this was a fun craft from start to finish.

We started by smushing the self-drying clay around the hollow ornament ball.  Then we put custom craters in the surface of our moon using the wooden bead provided.

Painting the moon was the tricky part!  A grown-up helper was a definite plus here.

moon makers book.  Each page has a cut-out allowing you to see the moon that is printed on the very last page. \

Like the comic in the booklet, the board book features Kellan the Koala and his friends.

The friends determine that, though they must part, they will always be able to look up at the same moon.  “Somewhere out there…”

This sweet little book also had a bit of a project — we painted the moon with glow-in-the-dark paint, so it will shine when we turn out the light.  What a fun little touch for a bedtime story!

Our completed crafts.  The glowing moon and the story will certainly get some repeated use.  Koala Crate is the member of  the KiwiCo family geared toward the youngest audience.  It is great for preschoolers, as it relies heavily on shape, color, and pattern recognition and other pre-reading skills.  The kids can enjoy a craft element, a game, and several fun activities in the Imagine! booklet. Although my son is almost 5 this is the member of the KiwiCo family he feels most comfortable with.

Visit Koala Crate to subscribe or find out more! Use this link to save 30% on your first box!  (or Kiwi Crate  and the KiwiCo family subscriptions Tinker Crate and Doodle Crate).