KiwiCo Koala Crate Review

I´ve heard about the Kiwico crates about two years ago when my son was 1 and even then, without reading too much about it I liked the idea.

I can´t tell you why I didn´t get a subscription then but what I can tell you for sure is that I am really sorry I didn´t and feel that we´ve missed so many wonderful hands-on activities, fun crafts, entertainment, and learning.

Oh well, the important thing is that I did it a few months ago, and ever since we’ve been eagerly waiting for our KiwiCo Koala Crate each month. 

I am the type of person who likes to read tons of reviews before making a purchase. So, I’ve decided to write this (hopefully) thorough Koala Crate review in the hopes that it will help you make an informed decision.

In this review you will find out:

-general information about the KiwiCo, the company and the people behind it

– the crates that are available

– my  Kiwico crate review

– information about the subscription prices

– a super promo code that will give you a whopping 50% off

So, without further ado, let´s begin.

This post may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You can read my full disclosure here.

What is KiwiCo?

Founded in 2011 by Sandra Oh Lin, KiwiCo is a monthly subscription service that provides STEM, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math), geography, early childhood development, chemistry, and more.

Right now, the company offers 8 subscription products and over 100 exclusive products that can be found in their online store.

The crates contain all the materials necessary to make the projects, plus easy-to-follow instructions and a booklet containing more activity ideas. There are other auxiliary materials that can be added to the subscription for an extra fee.

The KiwiCo crates are very popular around the world with over 25 million boxes shipped worldwide. They have also received positive press throughout the years from the likes of the New York Times, Business Insider, Vogue, USA today, etc., and won over 20 awards.

TIP: On their website, under the Blog category, they have even more fantastic STEAM ideas that you can do at home for different age groups (3-4 years, 5-8, 9-12, and 12+). Even if you don´t subscribe to their monthly crates, this section of the site is completely free for anyone to access.

The Mission and the people behind KiwiCo

KiwiCo has undertaken the mission to “inspire the next generation of innovators”. The crates have been created to “celebrate kids’ natural creativity and curiosity while helping parents who want to bring enriching experiences to their children”.

Their goal is to bring the family together and engage in activities that are enriching, fun, and encourage the kids’ creativity, and desire to explore.

When creating these little boxes of wonders, the KiwiCo team didn´t just think about the kids but also their parents. The crates come with absolutely everything you need for the projects (and most of the time even extra materials in case some are lost) which means no more researching and coming up with fun, hands-on activities, then gathering the materials, etc- we all know how this goes. Sometimes there is simply not enough time or energy in a day. Well, the Kiwi crates take care of all of that.

I personally love their mission and I think that they are doing a wonderful job at fulfilling it.

In order to deliver the highest quality each month, KiwiCo has gathered a fantastic team of educators, engineers, toys experts, designers, and rocket scientists (no joke apparently) that spend over 1000 hours brainstorming ideas, making prototypes, designing materials, and testing them.

That´s pretty impressive, right?

What Crates are available?

There are eight crates available, each for different age groups that take into account what children should be exploring at that particular age. 

Let´s take a quick look at each KiwiCo crate:

Panda Crate (0-24 months) – Explore and Discover

The Panda Crate is designed for the tinyest explorers, infants and toddlers. The materials and activities are specially created to help their developing brains through lots of exploratory play and social interaction.

The first step when purchasing the Panda Crate is to enter your child´s age (or due date) and you will receive your subscription box every other month. There are age-appropriate high-quality materials in each crate as follows:

• 0-2 months: Bond with me
• 3-6 months: Sense with me
• 7-12 months: Explore with me
• 13-18 months: Count with me
• 19-24 months: Solve with me

Koala Crate (ages 2-4) – Hands-on Fun and Learning for Budding Innovators

This crate introduces preschoolers to new concepts, tools and hands-on learning in a fun, egaging way using high-quality materials.

Each crate contains 2-3 early STEAM projects, a parent guide with easy-to-follow instructions and the Imagine magazine which has a lovely story related to the topic, puzzles, tips and more.

You can read more about this box and my personal opinion in my Koala Crate review further down in this post.

Kiwi Crate (ages 5-8)- Tinker, Create, Innovate

The contents of the Kiwi crate encourage kids to become creative and curious about the world around them. Children will receive everything they need to “explore creative, innovative STEAM projects“.

Some of the latest concepts explored were a capillaty action experiment, exploring balance, building a stop rocket and a kite, creating an arcade claw.

The Kiwi Crate is delivered monthly.

Atlas Crate (ages 6-11)- Ready to take on the world?

With the Altlas Crate children are encouraged to discover and learn about other cultures around the world. Through immersive, hands-on STEAM activities children develop an appreciation of other communities and customs outside their own.

The subscription begins with a World Crate in which kids will find the materials to build a spinning globe, a map, learn basic navigational skills, make their own travel book and more.

After this, each crate will focus on one culture like the Japan Crate or Peru Crate.

Doodle Crate (ages 14+)- A studio for hands-on creativity delivered

Doodle Crate is all about creativity. Those who choose to get this fantastic monthly box will discover unique crafting tools, materials, techniques and see the power of creativity at work. Besides all this, they will also practice other skills like patience, perseverance, confidence, tenacity, and a strong sense of self.

Tinker Crate (ages 9-16)- A Laboratory for hands-on STEM projects

The Tinker Crate includes all the materials to build creative, innovative STEM projects.

KiwiCo strongly believes that “STEM learning develops and inspires the next generation of innovators — from scientists, engineers, and leaders alike”. This belief is “poured” into every Tinker Crate.

Kids will be able to build functioning trebuchets, hydraulic claws, even a walking robot and explore concepts like mechanical motion, hydraulics, air resistance, levers and so much more.

Maker Crate (14-104)- Get creative. Get inspired. Get making

The Maker crate brings a mini creative workshop to your home every month. The crate will help craft lovers discover new techniques, tools and bring their artistic vision to reality.

Each crate focuses on different themes and new techniques like paper marbling, metal sculpture, dip-dye painting, macrame, loom knitting, hand lettering, embroidery, and more.

Eureka Crate (14-104)- Put Science to work and design amazing projects

A fantastic crate that encourages innovators to “think about the design and engineering behind everyday objects.”

The montly crate has all the high-quality materials needed to create awesome everyday objects by working with and applying math and science principles. Some of the projects include an articulated desk lamp, an electric pencil sharpener, a wooden ukalele to name just a few. All of them are fully functioning.

My honest Koala Crate Review

Nowadays the internet is full of wonderful ideas of projects and crafts to do with kids all ages. Plus, as a teacher I also take advantage of some of the games and materials that I had used with my classes in the past.

So, let´s say that I don´t lack the inspiration and cool ideas of what to with my little one. What I do sometimes lack is the time and (let me be honest) the energy to search for those ideas and gather the materials.

That being said, some time ago I saw an ad (I think it was on Facebook) about these awesome crates that contain all the materials for incredible STEM projects designed by professionals.

Naturally, I read all the KiwiCo reviews I could and finally made the decision to get a Koala Crate subscription at least for a month, test it out and see how it goes. Needless to say, not only did I not cancel the subscription after the first month but we eagerly await each Koala Crate.

So, here is my KiwiCo Koala Crate review + with pros and cons, impressions and other info.

Ordering: Subscribing and ordering the crate was straight forward and uncomplicated. You just have to complete some info about your child (name, age), then decide on whether you want to sign up for a monthly subscription, 3 months, 6 months or 12 months. Of course, the longer you decide to sign up for the cheaper the price. Just to give you an idea, the monthly subscription costs 19.95$ while the 12 months one is 16.95$. You can then add a specially curated book that complements the crate´s theme for the month which adds 9.95$ to your subscription. I haven´t added that so far but I am sure it is as delightful as the rest of the crate.

Note: Shipping in the US is completely FREE. Internationally there is a fee of 5.90$

Delivery: If you are in the US, the first crate ships in 2 days so the delivery should be pretty fast. Internationally, it takes between 7 and 14 days to be shipped. I live in Spain and it took about 1 month to get the first crate (quite a long time, but we have to take into account the current situation as well, I guess).

Pros:

• you get all the materials needed to make the projects
• for some projects, there are extra materials just in case some get lost
• high-quality materials (I was really impressed by this)
• easy-to-follow instructions with images
• each crate focuses on a theme- so far we got the rainbows, dinosaurs and farm
• each crate explores different cognitive and physical development areas like fine/gross motor skills, sensory play, matching and patterns, pretend play and so on.
• there are other project ideas to be explored besides the ones that come with the crate
• all the projects are highly engaging and fun to make
• the projects are so well designed that none have been a failure so far

Cons:

• the parcel takes quite a long time to arrive internationally (but it does arrive)
• the KiwiCo Koala crate sometimes contains smaller bits that could pose a choking risk which means constant supervision is required
• price- here it really depends on each family´s financial situation. It´s not the cheapest subscription box especially if you are not in the US, but at the same time, everything these guys do is high-quality so you really do get what you pay for.

Impressions: Regardless of how I feel about the Koala crate (yes, I love it), the important thing is whether my son liked it or not. I was so happy to see that he loved doing each and every project and more than that, he learnt so many things. He now knows how a rainbow is formed, about dinosaurs and fossils, farm animals and planting veggies.

He adores Kelan, Peter and Ellie, the characters from the Imagine magazine that comes with each crate. He loves the short story, which he asks me to read many times, and doing the puzzles.

Even though we do the projects together I am happy to see that my son takes an active part in completing them and he maintains his focus during the entire time.

The crate comes with 2-3 projects so I try to spread them out over a few days, sometimes 2 weeks. After we have finished doing the projects in the crate, there are more ideas related to the theme either in the booklet or on the KiwiCo blog and KiwiCo DIY Ideas. So, it´s safe to say that we can keep busy for about 3 weeks.

Another thing that I love is that some of the projects once done, provide a lot of open-ended and pretend play opportunities.

Would I improve something? Honestly nothing comes to mind right now. We love the Koala crate, everything about it is well thought out and flawlessly executed by a team of passionate people who know what they are doing.

How much does a KiwiCo Crate cost?

The Prices range from 19.95$ to 29.95$. Thus, the Koala, Kiwi, Altlas, Doodle and Tinker crates cost 19.95$/month (remember that if you are in the US, the shipping is free, while internationally it costs 5.90$). The Maker and Eureka crates are 29.95$/month.

The Panda crate for infants and toddlers is received once every 2 months and costs 39.90$/crate.

A Gift- Get your first crate today 50% off– Promo code

I really hope that my Koala Crate review and th information on KiwiCo, the company are useful to you and will help you make a decision.

And because I´m genuinely in love with their products and their mission and I believe that every little bit helps, here is my promo link that will give you a whopping 50% off your first order.

Remember that you can cancel at any time, no questions asked.