Panda Crate is a subscription from the KiwiCo family that’s specifically curated for babies ages 0-2. Shipping every other month, it costs $39.90 with free shipping to the US. This subscription is made for infants and toddlers to help in their early childhood development. Each box includes 5-6 learning toys and/or books ideal for child’s age and stage, a copy of wonder magazine, Activity Cards to promote learning and development, and Beyond the Crate Cards to help you bond and explore with your child. All products from this box are designed by experts and backed by researchers at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
DEAL: For a limited time save 30% on your first box! No coupon code needed, just use this link to get the offer! This is the best coupon available for Panda Crate!
It’s the EXPLORE WITH ME box!
Everything is placed inside this cute green box! The box looks full, and we’re excited!
It comes with a Wonder Magazine and a card.
There were partitions to ensure that the items won’t move around during transit.
Everything in the box is listed down on this page, and they also provided a picture and bits of information about each of them!
This month’s Wonder Magazine includes special articles about Promoting Spatial Awareness.
The back of the magazine presented us with KiwiCo’s goals for the next generation of innovators!
As usual, the booklet features a table of contents so you can easily get an overview of all the topics.
To help us understand more about our babies, they included this article that tells us about babies as eager explorers!
This article provides information about a baby’s sense of space. It’s important to know that every baby develops at their own pace!
Another feature is about the babies’ ability to start moving! And it also tells us about the importance of keeping them safe by babyproofing!
Here’s a column by Dr. Dimitri Christakis, which provides useful tips and advice for parents. This month, he answered a query about how to keep the baby’s surroundings safe as he/she learns to move around on his/her own.
Everything in my box!
Bead Maze. This toy is designed to help babies explore directionality and spatial concepts.
The rollercoaster wires on the bead maze are not only visually stimulating, they also allow little ones to discover abstract spatial concepts like over, under, left, and right. Because the bead’s path is complex, navigating it helps babies begin to phyiscally explore directionality. Plus, grasping and moving the beads is a great workout for little fingers.
This bead maze was made with non-toxic water-based paint and varnish. Aside from exploring spatial concepts, you can also use this toy to teach your baby about colors and shapes!
The bottom of the toy’s base has suction cups to hold it in place and stop it from sliding.
The beads move over, under, and through. Poppy the panda even bounces back! Panda Crate suggests creating a spatial challenge for your baby. You can ask your child to move a bead to a specific area in the maze.
Poppy’s Day Out. The crate also included an adorable board book, featuring Poppy! In the past crates, we also received Poppy books and we’re excited for more tales of this cute character!
A great way to help build your baby’s spatial awareness is to talk about it! Talking about words like over, behind, and below with examples is the best way for your child to build their spatial vocabulary and make the connections they need to put it to use. (I want up. Teddy fell down.) Try the suggestions below to explore spatial vocabulary together.
This board book is about Poppy is exploring the outside, still in line with exploring spatial concepts.
Poppy loves to explore! Join Poppy as she goes into, through, and all around the park. Where do you like to explore?
The book gives kids an idea of what they will find outside and what activities they can do, like playing and meeting new friends! The spatial vocabulary words are also in bold to emphasize them,
The illustrations are engaging and vibrant. The book also has thick pages that can withstand wear and tear!
Coin Box Puzzle. This may look like an ordinary coin box but it’s also a puzzle! It was designed to help improve baby’s hand-eye coordination.
Most babies love dropping things into a box, so your little one will probably start with putting the coins in. But the challenging part of this toy is getting the coins out, and that takes perseverance and problem-solving skills. As your child’s hand-eye coordination improves, they’ll learn to solve the puzzle and retrieve the coins.
The puzzle includes a box with a slot and a circle hole, plus 4 coins.
The toy is safe because it is painted using non-toxic water-based paint and varnish.
Aside from hand-eye coordination, parents can also help the kids learn how to count!
Tissue Box. It’s a tissue box and a toy that teaches early math concepts in one!
One item can contain multitudes! That is one of the key curiosities your little one learns in the first year. Pulling tissues out of the tissue box is not only a huge amount of fun, it’s a way to learn early math concepts. Your little one is learning that objects can hold other objects — a big idea for little minds.
The tissue box is an adorable panda head! It’s soft as it’s made with cotton.
It has flexible sides and a weighted bottom. It can be used with the fabric tissues included in this box or regular tissues.
Fabric Tissues. Together with the tissue box, babies can explore object permanence and tactile play using this set of fabric tissues.
Understanding object permanence — the idea that objects exist even though they can’t be seen — is a huge milestone for children 4 to 7 months. In addition to putting these fabric tissues in the tissue box, use them to cover things up and help your child learn that the object hasn’t disappeared completely — it’s only hiding.
There are 5 pieces of fabric tissues, all in black and white, and each comes in different patterns.
The tissues are made from 100% cotton, just like the Panda tissue box. They are also machine-washable and air-drying is recommended.
There are so many things you can do with the fabric tissues. You can use them to cover a toy when your baby is not looking and then lift it up to show them that the toy is underneath it. You can also put them on top of each other and encourage your baby to pull the top tissue to reveal the other underneath.
Here are the Beyond The Crate Cards! These cards feature activities you can do to bond with your baby. It includes What’s in the Bag, Living Room Maze, Peek-a-Boo Parachute, and Full and Empty.
The back of each card contains a list of what you need for the activity and easy-to-follow instructions. There are helpful tips for parents as well.
Children develop various skills during their early years and spatial awareness is just one of them! This subscription box is really helpful because everything they send, from the toys and books to the pointers for parents, are aimed to enhance your child’s learning experience. Also, they only send items made with safe and non-toxic materials, giving parents one less thing to worry about. This month our favorites from the box are the board book and the tissue box! For a more enjoyable bonding time with kids, they even send Beyond the Crate cards that parents can use as a reference. It’s a well-thought-out and age-appropriate subscription overall! We recommend it to parents who are looking for fun and durable educational toys for their little ones!
What do you think of this month’s Panda Crate?
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