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Animal Trackers Club Subscription Service Review

June 16, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Complimentary box provided for review purposes. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I agreed to review the Animal Trackers Club subscription box for kids because my oldest is particularly fond of animals. Her favorite cartoon is Wild Kratts (all about different animals in the wild) and one of her favorite things to do is to tell anyone who will listen all sorts of interesting and even random animal facts.

The Animal Trackers Club seems designed for kids over 3, but probably not older than 5, based on the skill level of the activities included.

Our kit came with the following items:

Introduction to the Animal Trackers Club
Animal Trackers Club Safari Lunchbox
African Savanna Information Card
Cover and Ring for the Safari Animal Photo Collection
Savanna Art Project
Savanna Animal Cards Activity

Each month your child will receive:

Animal Information Card
Animal Play Figure
Animal Foam Mask
Animal Magnet
Safari Animal Photo Card
Learning Activity
Art Project

So the lunchbox is a one-and-done kind of deal. The box is $11.95 plus shipping each month. This subscrition service is a bit less expensive than many of the other subscription boxes I have tried, and I think you get what you pay for here, as the activities, in my opinion, lacked imagination.

I will say that this might be a great choice for the animal loving-child who isn’t particularly fond of arts and crafts. I think I was expecting activities that were a bit more involved, when the reality was that we had a few worksheets, each of which only took a few minutes to complete, a craft that involved styrofoam (yuck) and a sticker activity that took about 30 seconds.

Now with that said, the animal figure and the animal mask that came in the kit were big hits, and the girls played with them for quite some time. So I could see this being a draw to the child who loves to form a collection, as each month you will get an animal figure and an animal mask to stow away in your safari lunchbox so that you can easily play all sorts of animal-based imaginative games. But the other activities will be over and done surprisingly fast.

The activities also seem geared toward those just learning letters and numbers, which will make them too old for the 7 or 8-year old who really loves animals and might otherwise enjoy the subscription. I think the target age here is small (3-5?) but for that age group, it could be a hit. It wasn’t a hit for us, but it wasn’t a complete miss, and I should remind us all of its price point again, which is lower than most subscription boxes for kids.

Homespun Fun, Delivered Monthly: Blossom Box Review

May 30, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Boxes provided for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

The subscription box market seems to be getting just a little crowded, especially when it comes to kid-friendly offerings. That means that buyers, like me, can be a bit ore choosy about what they select when looking for something fun for the kiddos.

I want to give a very strong recommendation for Blossom Box! While I don’t think it is the right subscription box for every single kid out there (and frankly, what subscription box would be?), I DO think it is a really great fit for kids ages 6-10 who love to use their imaginations, and who are intrigued by nature.

Blossom Box has a vibe to it that is different from any other subscription box I have yet encountered. It feels very homespun, and I mean that in a good way! Let’s take a closer look.

Here’s a look at the contents of April’s box, which was all about birds. Notice the natural materials included, such as bird feathers and bird seed. Even the individual projects come in these brown paper bags that give the entire box a natural feel.

May’s box is all about storytelling, with wooden figures and blocks as part of the offerings. Side note: I also noticed that the color pencils included were Crayola, which I definitely appreciated, because that’s one area where you get what you pay for with art supplies, so go for Crayola! 🙂

I found the May box to be too difficult for my youngest to get to play with as it involved some intricate cutting and sewing (to be fair, she just turned 3 a few weeks ago) and I even found it to be a bit of a stretch for my 5-year-old. So I’m tucking these activities away and will pull them out again next year when I think she’ll be more ready for them.

But the birds box was a huge hit with both of my kids! They loved making edible art for the birds with the birdseed.

We even took a few of the crafts with us on vacation, and made our own bird sculpture while we were there. It may not be the more realistic looking bird I’ve ever seen, but Layah sure was proud of her creation! She molded the clay just the way she wanted, and applied each and every feather herself.

And we also enjoyed trying out painting with feathers as our paintbrushes. The girls used both sides of the feathers and made some really cool paintings. We even had plenty of the tempera paint powder left over to save for future art projects, which was awesome!

I was very impressed with the art projects offered in the Blossom boxes. I can tell that a great deal of thought has gone into them, and the projects tend to use materials that are a bit different from what I’ve seen in other craft boxes. I do think they are a bit too advanced for your average preschooler, but that’s just my own opinion. I think this is a GREAT choice for an elementary school kid who loves art and nature. They come together beautifully in this monthly box.

Blossom Box is available for $19.95/month plus shipping (which is $4.95 per box). You can sign up month by month and cancel at any time, or you can purchase 3 month, 6 month and 12 month subscriptions for a discount, though with every plan, the shipping charge is added (my opinion? just wrap the shipping charge into the price of the kit and be done with it!).

Best believe this will be on our Christmas wish list this year! We loved it! 🙂

Coupon!

I’ve got a coupon code for anyone who wants to sign up for an ongoing subscription with Blossom Box. Use BLOOM at checkout and you’ll save 50% on your first box. Yay!

The Subscription Service for Budding Bookworms: Little Fun Club

November 26, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Sample box provided for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

You guys, I LOVE to find beautiful, unique and well-written children’s books. I think any parent can tell you from experience that despite the thousands and thousands of children’s books on the market, most of them aren’t all that great, especially if you have to read them 100 times.

Little Fun Club takes the guesswork out of finding high quality, sure-to-be-loved books for your kids. For $25/month, you will get a curated collection tailored to your child based on age, of delightful books that are a bit off the beaten path, but that are true treasures. Some boxes also include other great learning tools like puzzles. You should expect your box to have 3-4 items.

Here’s what came in our box for a 5-year-old.

little fun club 3

We got 3 great titles; all hardback books, too! They were all quite good, but I think two of the three are going to be kept indefinitely.

This read, A Blue So Blue, was one that really tugs at the heartstrings. It’s about a little boy who is an artist, and who finds himself traveling all over the world in search of the perfect shade of blue. Spoiler alert: he finally finds it, in his mother’s eyes. I totally cried when I read it! The pace and rhthym of the book are just wonderful. Such a great read!

And The Beastie Book, while perhaps just a touch scary, is nothing short of breathtaking. I’ve never seen such rich illustrations! Every letter of the alphabet has a corresponding beastie to go with it. They are funny little (and BIG!) characters and I noticed that Darah likes to spend a lot of time looking at the pictures.

I really love the concept of this subscription service. I also like that you don’t have to sign up for a set number of months; you can feel free to cancel at any time! Could you purchase these books on your own online for less than the subscription price? Most likely, but in my case, I’d never even heard of these books, so I didn’t know to look for them in the first place. That’s part of what you are paying for here: the curated selection!

I can tell that a great deal of thought was put into the selection of the books, and I was impressed with our first box, so much so that I plan on ordering another one early next year!

Checking Out Peekapak Craft and Story Subscription Service

November 19, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Affiliate link may be included. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

My little ones both seem to have a growing interest in crafts and other such artistic projects. I have mixed feelings about this, as my heart swells with pride, while my self-esteem also shudders in horror, on account of the fact that all things arts and crafts are challenging for yours truly. The craft gene totally skipped me, friends. I once drew something as a young teenager that someone else asked if my 3-year-old sister had drawn. Their question was totally serious, and also totally fair.

Ok, so since I break out into hives at the thought of spending time in Michael’s, I absolutely love craft subscription boxes, because they bring the supplies and the detailed instructions to me so that I can’t possibly mess up.

Of course I can still mess up! Don’t be fooled! But they do make it quite a bit more difficult for me to make major errors, and that’s a good thing!

Peekapak

Our latest box came to us courtesy of Peekapak. Inside every month’s Peekapak you’ll find a storybook and crafts that relate to that story. We were sent a special Peekapak that goes along with the new movie, The Hero of Color City.

I was concerned that we would be confused about the contents since we haven’t seen the movie, but the book that came with the kit laid out the story so that everyone understood what we were doing with the crafts. I think that relating the crafts back to a story is a unique element that I haven’t seen in any other craft subscription service.

The activity the kids wanted to do involved creating the color river and the lighthouse that were both featured in the story. The concept was simple: we covered a board with a sheet of aluminum foil (all included in the kit) and then used the crayons they provided to make gorgeous swirls of color on the river.

Such a great idea in theory! In practice, it looked like this:

I actually had to ditch the crayons that were provided and use our own crayons just to get this much color on the foil. I have to say, I thought it was a huge miss to have a craft box all about crayons and then to send really poor quality crayons in the kit. Talk about a missed opportunity!

Now as for this particular craft, it may be the case that I should have used the other side of the foil. I’m honestly not sure, but the directions didn’t specify one way or the other. In any case, our vibrant color river looked sort of sad, but the girls didn’t seem too fazed by it, and pressed on.

The next step was to color the windows for the light house. They took some creative license with their color choice, as well as with the light placement, which is totally fine. They both really liked the flameless candle that came in the set to make the top of the lighthouse. But I think the idea here was to create something that might inspire imaginative play after the creating process was over. As soon as the girls finished the lighthouse, they promptly left the table. So I’m sorry to say that it didn’t hold their interest after they were done creating.

Was I wowed by Peekapak after just one box? Not really. But would I try it again? I honestly would, and that’s largely because I like the combination of story time and craft time. It gives some context to the projects, and I think there’s a lot of potential there, though based on my experience with the crafts, definitely some kinks left to work out.

If you like the idea behind Peekapak, too, you might want to give it a try for a month. Use coupon code SPECIAL10 at checkout and you’ll get $10 0ff your first box. I think the discount definitely makes it worth the risk, friends. Pricing varies for each Peekapak depending on how many you pay for up front, but if you just go for one, they are $19.50 and that includes your shipping.