What We Tried – Kiwi Crate

For Christmas, That Little Girl received a voucher for Kiwi Crate. For anyone who isn’t familiar, because I know I was not, Kiwi Crate is a monthly subscription service. We sign up, they send her a box of activities designed for children 4-8 years old. After a bit of an issue redeeming our gift voucher, I had to sign up and pay for a month and then apply it to my account. I am willing to bet that was a That Girl issue and not a Kiwi Crate issue. They happily applied my credit to my account after the fact, even though it would not work for me. So the customer service was great, but as with any company during the holiday rush, it was not an immediate response. I just signed up and chose when I wanted the deliveries to begin.

The first delivery arrived and it was a Frozen Fun box. They won her over with the name! Kiwi Crate also included a great pair of scissors to get us started. Inside the box was nearly everything she would need to complete the projects including: markers, stickers, a ball, boxes, and cellophane. We did have to find brown paper bags and food coloring. In this crate were two major projects, one each of a snowman theme and a luminary theme, as well as a few activity books with stories and experiment ideas. The directions for each project comes with a rating on the front to describe both how messy the project is and how much parental involvement there is. This was great at a glance to give That Little Girl something to do while I made dinner.

The snowman project was pretty simple, but it kept her occupied for a while and she loved it. It included three boxes that came flat. I had to fold them for her. The crate included the stickers and markers as well as directions. Once I showed her how it worked, stacking the boxes as you would snowballs to create a snowman, she was good to go. She let me do a side of each one with helped to keep consistency for the top and bottom for a head, middle, and bottom box. This way she could turn them and mix and match the sides to create different snowmen. The only complaint with this project is that the ball included in the crate was to play a game of throwing it to knock down the snowman. Not sure that was necessary, but we just kind of skipped this part.

The second crate was a soccer game that you blew through straws after assembling and decorating a soccer field. I can’t even remember what the second activity was anymore. We never got a chance to try the third, or fourth, or fifth. You get the point. Yup, this is an original draft from LAST WINTER.

If you know That Little Girl, you can probably guess that the concept was a hit! She loves to do arts and crafts and learning so these have been a good combination of figuring things out and creating something. The Kiwi Crate is just one of their four brands. They have other crates for different age groups. We honestly extended the subscription because it was such a hit at first. Then we got busy. So busy. And we haven’t done a box since then.

I’m going to say we extended the subscription seven or eight months months. So, if you do the math, we now have probably seven “rainy day” boxes taking up space in the basement. With things a little calmer this year, I think they will be great for relaxed weekend afternoons while That Baby naps. With two parents and two kids running around during the week, like so many families do, we haven’t found the perfect balance to get kids at pick up, schoolwork/backpack prep, running to and from activities, a reasonably healthy dinner, bath, and bed done in a way that allows for that sort of organized play. That Little Girl does enjoy this sort of play and learning though so I won’t be getting rid of them anytime soon.

For the cost, I think That Little Girl would be just as happy doing any craft, not necessarily one that is so set up and comes in the mail. I enjoyed the ease of something coming here for her to do and the price seemed worth it when we started. But let’s be honest, it’s kind of a lot of “stuff”. I’m all about the fun and saving things. Probably a little too much. That Little Girl is all about saving everything she sees. I had to sneak them into the recycling and trash. That Guy was hovering over them at all times asking when we could sneak them out in the dark of night. Overall, I would say they are good in theory, just didn’t work for us at that time. There might even be a few that I can have That Baby involved with this winter.

Watch for a future post about the other subscription we tried for That Little Girl.