Kiwi Crate Craft Kits for Kids
These days Gavin is coming home from his preschool with a lot of arts and crafts and I completely feel guilty sometimes that I’ve limited him at home to Crayola Color Wonder markers, Play-Doh and Moon Dough. I am an OT and I’ve allowed him to experiment with using some scissors to cut some paper and mainly play-doh, but that is the extent of our arts and crafts session.
When I was initially asked to review the Kiwi Crate, (subscription based crafts kits for kids that come to the house via mail) I was a little skeptical. I had recently reviewed the Babbabox, a similar company, and though I liked the concept, I still haven’t had time in my life to devote to multi-step arts and crafts kits, some of which that take more than a day to complete.
Boy, was I completely wrong. For the child whose playroom is cluttered with the toys, the Kiwi Crate is perfect for a a monthly subscription gift. It is also THE perfect gift to give families with more than 1 child so you can get 1 cool gift the entire family can join in on. It’s great for summer time when the kids are home and you may want to build in some additional, fun educational content.
Gavin and I received 2 Kiwi Crates in the mail. These activity kits are recommended for kids ages 3-7. 1 kit we 
received is a top secret one that is due out this Fall, so stay tuned for more information on that. The one we completed together was the Space Hero themed Kiwi Crate.
The Kiwi Crate is essentially a small, rectangular green box (about the size of a child’s size shoebox). Inside the green box are activities that relate to a certain theme like space hero’s or what we called superhero’s!
In this kit there were 2 activities, plus a bonus activity. This kit allowed Gavin and I to make a superhero cape, a comet and the special activity was a space hero eye mask.
All of the materials for each activity were nicely organized in a sealed bag. Each activity came with a pamphlet. The pamphlet lists all the materials, the instructions, and different ways to play with the item. Along with written instructions there are pictures to match, so older school age kids (5-7) who are capable, should be able to follow the steps and work on it themselves, or with minimal supervision. My favorite piece of included information was a key on the front of the pamphlet that lists messiness factor (low, medium, high), grownup involvement (low, medium, high) and a few icons about the type of play it encourages (fine motor, gross motor). This particular activity kit was so easy to follow with an almost 3 year old, the items were completed in minutes. Yes, in minutes, my son was running around my living room wearing a cape and throwing a comet. He liked scribbling on the eye mask, but wasn’t a fan of wearing it.
The fabrics, stickers, markers, and ribbons in this particular kit are extremely high quality. This cape looks like I might have actually pulled out a sewing machine to make it. Though I had to help Gavin peel the stickers from the back of the felt shapes when decorating, this crate was right up both of our alleys. High quality, easy to do, with some fantastic long-lasting play value. There is also an online component where parents can find additional activities to do at home based upon the theme, and locate books for this age group they can check-out from their own library.
Keep the boxes they arrive in and label the sides, the boxes are all the same size, and stack well so when we were finished we put the items back in the box and stored them back on the playroom shelf.
There isn’t anything I can say about this product that I didn’t like. You can buy the crate’s yourself for $19.95 per month (add a 7.95 fee if you want it to be a “sharing crate” to ensure enough materials for 2 siblings). You can gift the crates or provide a gift card.
Kiwi Crate provided this kit free to facilitate this review. Any opinions are my own.