January Kiwi Crate update

The kids have completed the two crafts from our January Kiwi Crate and now I'm back with some info.

First, I don't think the sibling add-on was quite worth it for us. While Vivie is a 2-year-old and doesn't share well, I think there still would have been enough materials for her to participate.

I'm dropping the add-on option for the upcoming month (and watch it be the type of month where duplicates would have been worth it!).

Comet toss game:

I had to help with all of the assembly on this one. I didn't read the instructions close enough, and taped the circles wrong, so I had to cut it and retape it (with my tape). That was my fault. I also had to help them assemble their little ball comets.

Johnny enjoyed throwing it and it was good practice for him, since his throwing skills aren't so great. Since it was a frigid day outside, it was nice to have an indoor physical activity to do.

He also got a huge kick out of the bingo card element. Throw the ball to a certain color, mark off that color on your bingo card. I think more bingo is in our future.

We then moved the target rings to our foyer, and dropped the comets from our balcony. That always makes things more fun, right?

We experimented with the comet by taking the ball out, and dropping just the ball or just the fabric square. Didn't work so well. Physics!

Overall, this activity was ok. Nothing mind-blowing, but it was entertaining and something I didn't have to come up with on my own. The ball and fabric square can be re-purposed for something else, but the cardstock rings won't last.

A DIY version could be using rolled up socks and throwing them in different laundry baskets or shoeboxes or such.

Game board:

Since we only had one glue stick and one pack of markers, I did have to round up another glue stick so they could both glue at the same time.

They both used the markers (and it was fine to share the 8 markers) to decorate their game tokens and the game board. Johnny didn't seem to want to decorate much on the board, and at first he liked gluing the pieces on the game board but he got tired of it and I helped him finish.

I just let Vivie do her thing, without much guidance. I figured she didn't need to follow the rules -- she just needed to stay occupied and out of Johnny's hair.

We put the game board together and did two rounds. Johnny won both times and easily understood the rules. It's a simple, Candyland-like game.

We spent about 40 minutes on the game board assembly and playing it.

I haven't done the "explore more" activities yet, but some of the videos and activities sound good.

I think I was more excited about this crate than the kids were, though Johnny says he liked doing it. Perhaps if they were a little bit older, it would have been even better. I thought about saving one game board and materials to do in another year or so, but then I decided to just let Vivie have one now.

Still a fun thing for us and while I'm dropping it down to one child, we'll do a few more months at least (and it does help that I have a referal credit to save $10 off my next crate!).

If you'd like to give it a try, use my referral link to save $10 off your first. Cancel if you don't want to continue.