KiwiCo Crates!

When I took the Kuch Kids home in December, Christina was telling me about the KiwiCo crates that Caleb had done. I thought they looked amazing so I decided to check them out. Since it was Christmas time they had a great sale going on. I talked with Michael and we decided it would be fun to get the kids a 1 year membership. Their first crates came before Christmas, but I held them back until January after all the craziness of Christmas wore off. 

I will say the first crate was kind of a disaster! The older boys had really poor attitudes and I was thinking I'd made a mistake. But I set them down and talked about how these are supposed to be fun. It's not a race to get them done either. If it takes a few hours, days or weeks who cares. The whole point is to have fun, learn new skills and make something that's useable. Thankfully that little pep talk helped a bit. 

I got Owen and Jack both the Eureka Crate which is the highest level crate. Their first project was to make a safe with a key. I love that each booklet has some very interesting learning materials...in this case they were learning about locks and keys and how they have evolved over time. Very cool stuff! 

I got Ella the Maker Crate. Her first project was a punch needle pillow. Her crates don't usually come with a complete booklet because they are more detailed so she gets her instructions from the website in the form of a few step by step videos and she loves it! 

Hard at work! 

Zeke's gets the Doodle Crate. He's such a creative boy I thought that one would fit him well. His first project was to make a leather pouch to hold a sketch book they gave him. His crates are definitely less intensive so there's more instant gratification which for his age is really nice. He has checked out the other crates they have and he's asked me that if we do this next year he'd like to move up to the Tinker crate!  

Ella watching her video! 

Zeke had to sew the leather together and then he got to decorate the pouch with different colored eyelets. It's hard to tell, but he made it have a Z on it! 

The older boys with their finished safes. Once they got it through their heads that it was okay to mess up, redo it and troubleshoot they did great. The other thing they were learning about was gears. The round portion is actually the opening of the safe. You stick the key in the smaller gear on the right and then turn and it opens the bigger gear. It's really an amazing design. Plus I love that it's actually usable. Yes, the keys will work for both, but the boys know not to go into each other safes. 

Ella's punch needle pillow was a lot of work. She LOVED it though. She worked on it everyday! The first thing she had to do after building the frame that would hold the pillow cover was pick a design. Then transfer that design to the cover using this special marker that fades overtime. Then it was like coloring the in the lines with yard. 

We did have to take out a little bit of her work since we didn't pay attention to how much room we needed on the ends in order to be able to sew it together, but that was an easy as just tugging the yarn out. She was so proud and it's such a cute pillow! 

The second KiwiCo crate Zeke got to make homemade soap and a cute little soap dish. He loved this one and did it almost completely by himself! Again such a fun and useful thing to make! 

The quality of the material they send for the kids to use has been top notch and so many of the items they send can be used over and over again. For example Zeke got a plastic molds for the homemade soap...that can be used to make more later. Ella has a really nice punch needle and a fabric marker. Even the boys have gotten cute little tools that they've used to put things together like small screwdrivers or wrenches. 

Ella's second project was this magazine / book holder. She got to put it together, but the main thing she was learning about was stenciling. This was so much fun! She even wanted to make the leaves have an hombre look so they go from lighter green to darker green. My only problem with this one was they should have included horizontal supports in the middle on the two sides. It's only held together by the wood pieces sliding into each other and glue and it's not a tight fit! Michael is going to have to add the supports so it won't keep collapsing on itself when she puts a heavy book in it. Still stenciling is such a fun useful skill to have. In fact she spent her own money and bought 5 canvas tote bags in order to use her skills for something else. 

With her stencil kit she got an Exact-O knife, a cutting mat, a stencil brush, paints and a paint tray all of which can be used time and time again on other projects! 

Back in December we went and saw the Kuch kids perform with their Homeschool Choir. I enjoyed it so much and Christina had nothing but wonderful things to say about it so I decided to sign up Jack & Ella. Ella has two choir books she needs to bring so she decided to make herself a specific choir bag and use the stenciling skills she learned make it special. 

I had the alphabet stencils for her name, but she had to draw and cut out the music notes on the stencil sheet. It turned out so cute! 

For Jack's second project he got to make a flashlight / lantern. Jackson really LOVES KiwiCo. He loves it so much he tends to jump in and usually ends up jumping ahead and having to take something apart and redo it. Thankful the projects so far haven't contained anything that we couldn't undo and make right. They also are great about included extras of things so even if you mess up a couple of times you'll still have enough. 

Here's his finish lantern! 

Hit the red button to turn it on and then pull up and the voila a lantern! 

Or he can unclasp the handle and reattach it on the other side and use it as a flashlight. Seriously amazing designs! He can't wait to take this camp with us this summer! 

This time Owen and Jack had different projects, but I like that they both got to make some sort of light source. Since Jack already has a light for his bed that meant that Owen got to make this articulating desk lamp. I didn't even have to help him at all. It's so crazy how this pulley system works to he can move it up and out. with the handles at the base of the lamp. So fun! 

Like I said I've been super impressed with KiwiCo. They are a bit pricey, but you get useful, great quality projects that your kids will love! If you do sign up for a longer plan such as a year you will pay less. I also have a code that will save your $10 on your first purchase if you'd like to check it out. 

https://www.kiwico.com/Refer?i=LyndsayM33