Amazon STEM Toy Club April 2017 Subscription Box Review – 5 to 7 Year Old Box

3 comments!
Hello Subscription independently researches and reviews the best subscriptions and products. Things you buy through our links may earn us a commission.
Go to commentsNotification

Amazon STEM Toy Club is a monthly subscription box service that delivers an age-appropriate STEM toy that encourages any child to learn through play. The subscription costs $19.99 per per month, and the theme of the month can be anything from natural sciences to robotics. There’s always something new to discover in every box of Amazon STEM Toy Club!

There are three age ranges available for this box: 3-4 year old, 5-7 year old, and 8-13 year old. This is a review of the 5-7 year old box.

This an an Amazon subscription, so the toys arrive packed just like any other Amazon purchase. If you get multiple subscriptions, they will likely ship together.

 

Everything in our box! We ordered a subscription for each age. Each box appears to be themed around Engineering this month. No information card or other extras are shipped with the toy. This review will cover the 5-7 year old subscription.

Magic School Bus Engineering Lab ($27.01): This bus contains an astounding number of scientific explorations using the award-winning PBS series as a vehicle.

There is something to catch and hold the interest of any child. The activities are clustered in groups to more thoroughly explore each topic and get the most out of the supplies.

A large deck of cards guides you through the numerous explorations and experiments. The first several cards introduce Ms Frizzle (the teacher from the series and our present guide), list the contents of the box, and provide an index of the various activities and experiments.

Numbered cards layout the instructions for the various activities. The cards are numbered up to #12D – there are literally dozens of activities! A journal is included with discussion prompts and for guiding observations to be made during each activity.

Nearly everything needed is included in the kit. When items from home are needed, the cards show a little symbol in the shape of a house.

The cards were a great way to get the kids interested in the box. It had a nice introduction to familiarize them with the concept of the show and how to work their way through the various activities. Each card contained a discreet activity, making it easy to attack piecemeal or spread over many days.

The log book contained additional prompts for discussion beyond those on the cards. More importantly, it facilitated the kids’ actively describing what they observed during the activities, encouraging them to formalize their hypotheses and observations.

The box was themed “Engineering Lab,” so all the activities dealt with physics and forces. Here, the kids are setting up a balloon-powered zip line. We needed some tape and chairs from home for this activity.

Here we were preparing our “Dancing Noodles” with baking soda and vinegar.

The kit contained complete instructions for the activities, plus any unique items. We supplied everything for this particular activity.

When the vinegar was added, the burst of bubbles cause the bits of spaghetti to leap onto their ends and dance!

After the initial rush of gas, they didn’t really do much, but it was enough to get the kids discussing just why the noodles did what they did – and that is the goal of the kit.

This STEM toy selection was very involved, and there was alot for the kids to do. There were several small observational experiments, plus some bigger projects – like making a basic solar-powered car! The journal was handy for encouraging reflection, but the main thrust of the kit is observing while doing — and having fun! As a subscription, Amazon STEM still lacks the polished presentation like there is in Surprise Sweets, but the toys selections have been exciting enough without any added fanfare. We do order many things from Amazon, though, and a cute custom sticker on the side of the shipping box would help make the subscription stand out from ordinary purchases. The selections we’ve seen thus far have packed tons of value, exceeding the cost of the subscription by quite a bit.

If you received something different than our family, let us know in the comments!

Visit Amazon STEM Toy Club to subscribe or find out more!

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Dawn S
    04.20.17

    I am a bit confused, you have a picture with 3 items and say everything in our box, but you only reviewed one item…… did I miss something?
    I did love the review of the Magic School Bus kit though. Thanks.