Rainy Day Kiwi Crate | Oahu Kids Activities

Last week was a rough one. One teething toddler with a growth spurt, one hyperactive preschooler, a disaster of a house with no food in it and rain. Rain and more rain. It’s summer. This is unacceptable. I demand sunshine.

Anyway, things were rapidly progressing from bad to worse when our Kiwi Crate arrived in the mail. I swear if I had seen the postman arrive, crate in hand, I would have given him a bear hug. My hero in blue, you absolutely saved the day. Okay, you may be wondering what’s so special about a box of fruit … or are we talking flightless birds because that doesn’t seem ethical? No, no. Actually a Kiwi Crate is a little box of activities for the wee ones (ages 3-7, sorry Mila). Each month there is a different theme. You receive a package (addressed to the kids, nice touch) with 2 different projects related to the theme. The projects are part art, part science, part imagination and always good. Better yet, everything you need (everything) comes in  your little crate. Sanity if a box I say.

Before I started working full-time from home with no childcare (insanity by the way, please don’t try this in your home), I used to put together one or two art projects a week for Micah. It was fun and we both really enjoyed it, but putting it all together was such a hassle. We don’t have a lot of craft stores on Oahu and certainly nothing cheap (the best prices I could find were at Fisher’s). I would scour the island and the internet for random objects like liquid water color, beeswax, glycerin and clear contact paper. It seemed like every easy, do it with items around the house project assumed you already own a glue gun, a brayer, Mod Podge (in various finishes), a wood burning kit, a Dremmel tool and million other things. I ended up spending a small fortune on art supplies. But now we have Kiwi Crate. I know it sounds like i’m sponsored by Kiwi Crate but, i’m just a huge fan. I’m sharing the knowledge in case it helps you survive some of those rainy days.

This month’s theme was bugs. Micah decided to start with the “make your own lightning bug” project.

Carefully decorating his bugs body with the translucent stickers. We could see how colors mixed when overlapped.

Mila badly wanted to help. I gave her some crayons to keep her busy. She’s obsessed with crayons. If she could carry a crayon with her all day long, she’d be a happy girl. Our couch has gained some extra color.Micah was over-the-top excited about the glow stick, only it wasn’t as easy to activate as he thought.For the grand finale we got to make our lightning bug fly. The kit came with a sparkly zip line so we could fly him back and forth between us. This was extra fun in the dark.Every project has additional information for the kids to think about. I tried to tell Micah what it said about lightning bugs, but he had his own ideas. Did you know that bugs need wind to fly? He was very serious about this and went on at great length.Kiwi Crate : Day 2. The next day was more of the same, except raining even harder. 7am and Micah was ready to dive right into the next Kiwi Crate project.There was painting involved, so I covered the table in butcher paper and set Mila up with a random assortment of art supplies. Total contentment. I love this face by the way – it’s her “i’m doing something hard and i’m proud face”.

There were several scenes to paint using magic, bug-shaped sponges. What’s cooler than watching a dehydrated sponge expand? Once the paint came out, I had to put my camera away, but the next day was hot and sunny and those sponges were put to good use. We used water (my favorite medium for kids!) to stamp the bug shapes on the wall and completed the scene with a big paint brush. Then Micah discovered that a wet sponge would stick when you threw it at the wall. He spent a good hour just throwing that sponge. This month’s Kiwi Crate lasted us a solid week and we still have some more bug painting to do and bug cards to play with. It’s better than buying toys.

If you’re interested in checking out Kiwi Crate for yourself, you can get $10 off your first crate by using this link. They’re only $20 including shipping to Hawaii! If you’re kids are still too small, I recommended bookmarking this – there’s a good chance you’ll want a crate later!

 

Controlled settings,

interacting with kids in a natural way

story-telling