Thanks to thoughtful grandparents, my daughter received a subscription to the Green Kids Craft Box for her birthday. She gets to look forward to a fresh box each month, and I don’t have to pull out my hair trying to make room for one more toy. Win-win!
First off, what’s in the box? Over the course of two boxes so far (one with a Green Energy theme, the other with Robotics), my daughter has:
- built a self-propelling wooden boat
- baked herself a cookie in her own solar oven
- launched “rockets” using a straw
- built an art-bot that drew for her
- navigated courses with her magnetic robot
- Created a pulley “Glide-bot” (which now resides on our filthy sliding glass door)
As a mom and a teacher, I absolutely love that she has something to fuel her curiosity and creativity for hours on end.
My favorite element of this box is the fact that it provides interdisciplinary opportunities:
- She has to read loads of instructions (which are very detailed with pictures), so she’s working hard on her reading and comprehension skills.
- She has to take a lot of measurements, so she’s developing her ability to convert between inches and centimeters, along with other basic math skills.
- Science skills are by the boatload here (pun intended, I guess, as she actually did build a little boat): hypothesizing, experimenting, data-collecting, reflecting, etc.
- Even engineering and art (definitely a win for the whole STEM/STEAM endeavor) get a work-out as she has to figure out pulleys, gears, and brads, plus general aesthetic design.
I’m guessing that if I spent enough hours combing Pinterest, I could maybe find most of these activities. However, the fact that I don’t have to go hunt down a bunch of obscure materials is worth my time. And there really is something magical for kids about receiving your own little parcel in the mail made just for you, especially with the added anticipation of a monthly subscription!
Overall, I’d definitely recommend these boxes to the 5-8 year-old crowd!
featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto