KiwiCo Review: Kiwi Crate for 5-8 year olds -MECHANICAL SWEEPER

Creative homeschool STEM fun with the Kiwi Crate Mechanical Sweeper box and learning about baleen whales.

WHAT IS IN THE MECHANICAL SWEEPER CRATE?

This box is all about baleen whales! The main project (engineering) involves building a mechanical floor sweeper with it’s rotating foam ‘teeth’ representing the baleen ‘moustache’ found in the whale’s mouth for filtering krill out of water. What makes it really engaging for kids is the art aspect for the crate.

The second project (art) is creating two watercolour salt art whales. Everything you need is included (from a paint kit to the salt) and the kids can create beautiful textured patterns with salt while learning about molecular bonds. The salt attracts and absorbs the water around it but leaves the coloured pigments behind.

The whales are then attached to the sides of the floor sweeper and Voila! Your baleen whale can now eat the little furry balls (representing phytoplankton and zooplankton) provided with the crate.

There are also ideas included for additional projects using materials at home – like making a baby whale using a paper cup and craft materials.

HOW DO I ORDER KIWI CRATE?

This is not a paid review. I spent a lot of time searching the internet to find out more information about the Kiwi Crate and Atlas Crate boxes before deciding to try them and found the blog posts / photos that people shared were really useful!
If you would like to try Kiwi Crate (or one of their other lines), you can receive 50% off your first box by clicking here.

What I like about the Kiwi Crate kits is that they use a combination of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics to explore a concept or idea. There’s no obligation to sign-up in an on-going capacity so it’s easy to tie them in with birthdays / Christmas; the boxes are quite compact so they also store easily in a cupboard for bringing them out on a rainy day. Mind you, this only works if you spot the package on the door-step first – children become quite adept at recognising the green Kiwi Crate box and screaming with delight at it’s arrival!

The boxes are sent randomly so there’s no way to know what will come in the future; however, you can log-in to your account at the start of each month to see what box has been selected. Your box history is kept which means that even if you cancel and then pick-up again the following year they can make sure that you aren’t sent repeats of boxes.

WHAT IS IN A KIWI CRATE?

The Kiwi Crate is aimed at ages 5-8 years. It comes with a copy of the Explore magazine which opens with a fun comic about Steve the Kiwi and his friends. [As a side note, these are made by an American company despite the use of our New Zealand native bird]. These comics are really approachable for younger kids and a great way of exploring the concepts being introduced in a relateable manner.

The Explore magazine provides a range of information on the topic, it might include some simple games or tricks to try at home, and provide ideas for additional crafts / activities using simple materials. It also has a sticker [unique to each box theme] to put on your Kiwi Crate chart.

The box also includes an instruction manual and the materials that you need to build the main craft. Generally, there are two activities to do – one that is more art related, and one that is more mechanical engineering. What makes the kits special, is how well crafted the engineering components are. They really are designed for the intended age group so that they can either build themselves or help assist an adult. There are handy visual images and checkpoints to make sure that things are aligned correctly. There is no super-bonding-fingers-together wood glue to use with these projects (which makes them great for highly sensory children); instead parts come with double sided tape finely engineered on so that you just need to remove the backing strip of paper.