Girls Can Crate is a monthly subscription for children between 5 and 10 years of age that promotes the idea that girls can do whatever they set their minds to. Each month features a different female pioneer whose story inspires girls to achieve. Each box includes a 20-page activity book that includes the heroine’s story, 2-3 STEAM activities, and creative play props. Boxes cost $29.95 each month with themes that celebrate female pioneers from diverse backgrounds, but the activities themselves are usually gender neutral.
DEAL: Save 15% on your first box! Use coupon code HELLO15.
It’s another promising box that features a great heroine!
The box is always full of fun stuff and activities!
The items are protected by bright yellow squiggles.
There’s a pamphlet that lists what’s inside the crate. This month, we’re celebrating the life of Dr. Irene Uchida!
Meanwhile, these are pointers for parents on how to help kids become spirited.
Everything in the box!
As always, the box includes a booklet featuring information about this month’s heroine.
At the back of the booklet is a quote from this month’s heroine:
Science is a rewarding and challenging career. Young people going into Science must keep an open mind to all ideas in an effort to find every possible way to help people.
They also indicated that a portion of the proceeds from every GIRLS CAN! Crate sale helps support non-profit organizations working to empower girls.
Dr. Irene Ayako Uchida, also known as the Spirited Cytogeneticist, is a Canadian scientist and Down Syndrome researcher. Her parents, who were Japanese immigrants to Canada, are the ones who encouraged her to learn and discover new things. Irene loved to read and she spent hours reading and exploring the world through books, she even studied literature in college.
Because of World War II, she needed to stop going to school. The war is a really hard time for her family but didn’t stop Irene from helping those who wanted to learn. A friend helped her to start a school in the camp where they taught kids who wanted to continue their education. She helped with tutoring and even repaired things at the camp!
Following the war, she went back to college. She then decided to study Social Work. But a professor saw her potential in the Sciences and encouraged her to study genetics.
Soon, Irene was researching genetic diseases in twins and children with Down Syndrome. She proved that it can’t just be passed down from the mother, but fathers can be responsible for that extra chromosome that leads to Down Syndrome as well.
There are lots of fun activities in the booklet, like this one where you’ll complete Dr. Uchida’s accomplishments. The next page features another brilliant chemist, Rosalind Franklin! She improved the X-ray crystallography, and thorough this, she was able to get high-resolution photos of the DNA.
You will also learn more about the DNA with the help of the booklet!
The booklet also features a recipe for the Sweet Cell Snack, which is an edible model of a cell!
My daughter also did the activity about naming the different parts of a cell!
The booklet also includes a DNA Sudoku! Another activity is about forming other words using the letters from Deoxyribonucleic Acid, which is what DNA stands for.
This month’s pin, of course, features the Spirited Cytogeneticist, Dr. Irene Uchida!
Activity #1: Extract DNA. The first activity is all about extracting DNA!
Every step is explained thoroughly so we didn’t have any problems with it!
To extract the DNA, or pull it out of your spit or out of strawberries, each step in our science experiment has a very important job. Soap helps to dissolve cell membranes, or get into the cell. The salt releases the DNA strands by breaking down protein chains. Lastly, DNA is not soluble (can’t be dissolved by) in rubbing alcohol, so it floats in the solution.
For this activity, we need strawberry fruits crisps, ziplock bags, stirrer, salt, straining bag, rubbing alcohol, centrifuge, ribbon, water, clear cup, and dish soap.
The first activity we did is extracting DNA from strawberries. We crushed the strawberry crisps inside the ziplock bag and added water to it, then prepared the extraction solution of the dish soap and salt. We strained the crushed strawberries on the solution afterward.
We let the solution sit for some time. After pouring some alcohol, white foam-like stuff was formed on top of the solution.
Using a stirrer, we skimmed it from the solution, the extracted strawberry DNA!
For our own DNA, we used saliva samples from gargling instead of the strawberry crisps.
We kept what we extracted from the sample and put it into a centrifuge, and made it a necklace! It’s a cool experiment!
Activity #2: Sweet DNA Model. For the second activity, we’re making a sweet DNA model! Genes carry the information that determines the traits each person will exhibit. For this activity, we’re going to build our own DNA model and explore this strand that makes a person unique!
For this activity, we used orange circles, circle stickers, licorice pieces, toothpicks, wire, and a pair of scissors. Each candy represents a different part of DNA structure.
We cut the licorice pieces into one-inch segments. We also did it to the other 5 colors.
We formed the model as instructed, each color of the licorice also has a meaning for our model! And twiiist into that familiar double helix shape…
Here’s the final model by my daughter! It looks amazing!
The DNA model is ready for display!
The DNA model can eveb stand on its own.
Bonus Activity: All About Me Poster. Aside from the 2 activities, here’s a bonus one where we’ll make an “All About Me” poster!
The poster will include personal information, and stuff that makes a person unique! We just have to fill it out and draw some pictures!
This is yet another fun box from Girls Can! Crate. Dr. Irene Uchida inspired us all to dream and make it a reality. We also love how she shifted from Social Work to Science specifically Genetics and use her knowledge in helping others, especially the kids with Down Syndrome. The activities from this box prove to us how fun science experiments are! It’s also fun to know how and where each of us got our unique traits. This box is really inspiring, and it helps children to know themselves at an early age so that they will have an idea of what they really want to become when they grow up!
Do you enjoy Girls Can Crate as much as we do? What’s your favorite thing about this subscription?
Comments