Kiwi Crate Review & Coupon – Coral Reef!

It’s time to go under the sea! Kiwi Crate is a kids’ craft and activity subscription and it comes with everything you need to complete a great project or two, usually a pair of crafts that can be used as toys or playtime props.  This box is geared for ages 3-7, and the projects are always age-appropriate, though some require more parental assistance than others. Kiwi Crate is the most popular craft and activity subscription box for kids.

Kiwi Crate includes all necessary supplies for the featured activities, plus explore! magazine.  You really need very little from home to do the crafts. Usually, you only need a pair of scissors (which is sent to you with a new subscription!), but often the pieces are pre-cut, scored, or otherwise prepared for you already.  The crate includes self-adhesive items or glue/glue dots if needed for the crafts.

All the supplies for the this month’s theme: Coral Reef!

Every Kiwi Crate includes an issue of explore! magazine which has several features that bring the current theme to life.

There is always a comic in which Steve and his pals sharing an adventure that fits this month’s theme.

explore! often has experiments, puzzles, or picture / word find type games,  each packed with information and insight into the featured theme.  There are even additional crafts and activities you can complete with household supplies to keep the fun going!

explore! has read, draw, learn, explore, eat, and make designated activities.  Each activity is an extension on the theme of the box, whether it be factoids, drawing activities, or recipes. For parents, the activities are also a great way to keep your child entertained while you peruse the contents of the box and take a peek at the instructions for the crafts (it only takes a peek — they are always very clear and simple)!

Every Kiwi Crate come with a unique Steve sticker — it’s like your merit badge for completing the box.

We have quite the collection, and we are currently being creative with our placement of the stickers on (and around) our sticker display poster.

The second booklet that comes in every crate is the actual instruction booklet for the crafts.  This month included three crafts that were all part of one large project, not including the additional extension projects included in explore!

They provide an inventory of all the parts and supplies in the box, plus a handy breakdown of the potential messiness and need for parental assistance for each of the main projects.

Our kids love to go through everything first before starting the main project.  Our advanced reader work through it with her little brother.

Then, of course, they work their way through each activity.  Since we subscribe to all four boxes in the KiwiCo family, two of which are better suited for our older child, we let our younger child take on the activities in Kiwi.

This month’s project is divided into three parts. Part one of the activity is to color your reef to create a backdrop for your jellyfish.

The crate included three different backdrops with pre-populated seascapes to color, plus a set of pastels and a smudging foam marshmallow.  At the urging of the instructions, we experimented with using water to alter the saturation of the pastels — we even broke out the Q-tips!

The second project, or second phase of the main project, was to construct the actual jellyfish that will inhabit the seascape.  The two creatures were a combination paper and string tentacles, part of a plastic egg, a pipe cleaner, a sticker, and a couple googly eyes.

Lastly, you have to assemble everything together, and then race your jellyfishes!

This last phase of the project is the most likely to need a grown-up assist.  The mechanisms that raise the jellyfish are well marked with guidance on the correct orientation of the pieces.  The criticality of their placement, however, means that you’ll want to verify that every thing is going together correctly.

Our finished project!  The jellyfish were able to dangle well beyond the bottom of the frame, as there was a good half foot of extra string for each.

We scooted our box to the edge of the table and raced them from below the table all the way to the top!

Kiwi Crate is always a hit with our kids.  The complexity and subject matter of the box is good for a both preschool and grade school age kids — the activities and instructions are generally very simple, but the kit always includes some factoids and extension activities that keep our older child interested.

Visit Kiwi Crate to subscribe or to find out more about this fantastic kids’ craft subscription box! Use coupon code MS30 to save 30% on your first box of Kiwi Crate (or KiwiCo family subscriptions Tinker Crate, Koala Crate, and Doodle Crate ).