Ivy Kids Kits is an educational subscription box for children aged 3-8. Every box contains a book and 10+ educational activities, with instructions on how to do the activities, and how to adapt them for different age groups (3-5 or 5-8). One item is personalized with your child’s name. Past kits can also be purchased separately from their shop. They kindly sent me this box for review.
- The Cost: US $39.99 + shipping (free in the US)
- Ships to: US, Canada
- Frequency: monthly
- Good to Know: You can skip a month by emailing them to info@ivy-kids.com before your kit ships and they can place your subscription on hold.
Everything comes neatly packed in a brown cardboard box. I prefer this over fancy colourful boxes, because I rarely save boxes and like them to be easily recyclable. It’s also an additional educational point, since I like to talk to my daughter about importance of choosing environmentally friendly packaging.
The theme card is glued to the inside of the box, and lists all the contents. The box is paper heavy, but includes lots of art, craft and other supplies, and paper-based activities like board games are printed on heavy card stock for longevity. The first box you receive includes a welcome gift, a pair of scissors, that will be useful for a number of activities.
June Ivy Kids Kits theme is My Tiny Life by Ruby T. Hummingbird! How exciting. We actually get Anna’s hummingbirds almost year-round, so it’s a perfect theme for my daughter. Here’s what we received in this kit:
The Book: My Tiny Life by Ruby T. Hummingbird, reading comprehension questions and coloring page
We love this book. It’s written in such a unique way, as a diary of a little hummingbird, from the time it hatches, as it grows, migrates south and back north. It’s short and sweet so we can read through the whole book each time. It also contains a few info pages about hummingbirds. The comprehension questions are a bit too much for my 4 year old daughter right now, but I’m saving them for when she’s older. At the moment we’re using them as a bookmark. The colouring page is personalized with her name.
Pollen Math and Flower Pollination Game
Pollen math is such a simple and fun “game”, that’s teaching math. It can be used for counting, addition subtraction or multiplication. For my 4 year old we only used it for counting, but I love how we can reuse it later as her math skills progress. Additionally, using tweezers is a great fine motor skill that helps with holding a pencil properly.
The Flower pollination game is great for identifying letter names, sounds or words that start with those letters. One board contains letters, the other one two-letter blends. We’ve been playing with and without the timer, and my daughter likes it. Again, this is an activity we’ll be reusing as her reading skills progress.
Migration Board Game and Hummingbird Puppet
The migration board game, printed on heavy card stock, is so fun and quite easy. It’s definitely a good starter board game for any child, and my daughter figured it out quickly. It teaches about hummingbirds’ migration, while reinforcing math skills (counting, addition). Also, the game pawns need to be cut out, which is a great scissor skills practice.
The puppet is a fun craft project that uses the classic school skills like cutting, colouring, glueing and following instructions, while learning about hummingbirds and their body parts. It was a good project for my daughter.
Hummingbird Feeder, Binoculars & Birdwatching
Building the feeder actually teaches engineering skills. We already have a few hummingbird feeders, so my daughter was familiar with what we were building, but still needed some help with this project. I like the design of this feeder, but I doubt we’ll be using it, except for pretend play, since it’s not as sturdy as the real feeders we have. Nonetheless, it was a fun and educational activity.
The binoculars came pre-assembled, and my daughter just needed to paint them and apply the bug stickers, which she refused to do and just grabbed the binoculars to play with. These are not her first binoculars, and she’s always been fascinated with looking through them, so I’m not surprised. We’ll save the painting them for another time, and for now just bring them along when we’re out and about to look at and identify the birds around us.
Hummingbird Ornament and Garden
The hummingbird ornament is large and beautiful. I like that it’s not glass, so we don’t have to fear it’ll break. I saved painting it for later, since my daughter was getting a bit tired of painting, but we used it to pretend play and talk about how hummingbirds eat from flowers and the feeder we made previously. I can’t wait to see what colours she chooses when she finally paints it.
It may be a little late to grow the flowers from the seeds provided, but we are trying anyways. My daughter loves gardening, and we have an indoor garden with lights, so we planted the seeds together and placed them under the lights. Once they become bigger we’ll transplant them outdoors and hope for the best 🙂
Pollen Race
This game comes with two boards and reuses some of the supplies from previous activities (pom poms, tweezers and dice). At first it took my daughter a while to figure out the concept, but once it clicked we managed to play with both boards. The 2 dice board is great for learning or reinforcing addition, but for now we’re just counting the spots on the two dice together.
Hummingbird Lifecycle, Flap Like a Hummingbird and Hum Like a Hummingbird
These last three activities are very unique, but I saved them for later one, since we did so many activities in just a few days. We never used model magic before, but it feels similar to play dough and dries overnight. My daughter will definitely need some help making the hummingbird, but we’re not looking for perfecting. We already built some nests before, and I know she loves this kind of activity. It’s a great hand-on visual way to learn about life cycles.
The flap like a hummingbird is a fun gross motor activity, and great for burning energy. I actually recommend doing it before sitting down for other activities, since it can improve focus. It’s flexible, and we’ll be trying different versions each time.
The last activity is the most unique, since the child is building an instrument. It focuses on engineering skills, but I like the added element of music. My 4 year old will need some help, but older kids may be able to make it themselves.
Here are some of our finished projects:
Ivy Kids Kits June 2023 – Final Thougths
Ivy Kids Kits is such a great and well rounded box that teaches many skills needed for preschool to early elementary school. I love that it includes not just academics, but also fine and gross motor skills. I also appreciate that we didn’t need to add many things from home, and the what was needed is what we always have at home anyways. There are so many activities and we definitely rushed too much to do as many as possible, but in the future I’ll spread them around. It’s well worth the cost, and we’ll be looking forward to the next box.
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