KiwiCo crates for both of my kids are my life savers during this never ending pandemic, when kids go to school 3 days and them stay home for 2 or vice versa. This marathon is draining for parents and kids just the same. School age children go from excitement to boredom and back again in minutes day after day. They get busy and then they become disappointed and look for distractions in their devices or whine about being oh so bored. This can leave working and multitasking parents at their wits’ end!

I am not very creative and thus allow my kids way too much screen time all while enjoying silence and simultaneously mad at myself for allowing them this mindless activity for way too long. This is why I love KiwiCo crates. When they arrive faithfully every month, kids get excited and for the right reasons for once.

They view their crates as a super fun activity, which it definitely is, but also much more than just that. I enjoy knowing that this subscription service is serious about STEAM and all activities involve some of those elements. Kids learn so much just doing their projects and having fun. This is why I don’t mind spending $19.99 every month and would spend even more than that if needed. See KiwiCo Coupons.

My son is 8 and uber interested in everything technology, electricity, and engineering related. We go through AAA and AA batteries like there is no tomorrow, and so Tinker crate is an obvious choice for him. We started with 3 month subscription, then extended to 3 more, and now it looks like we’ll be signing up for half a year - opening crates day is almost equal to birthdays in our house, so naturally!

I love all the crates because of how well organized they are, how cool the projects can be, and what high quality all the needed materials always are. All I have to do is take some pictures and enjoy work or book reading in peace for a few hours, so what’s not to love?

This month’s Tinker crate is called Phantom Projector. It didn’t take very long to build, but it included construction of a black box and usage of batteries, so it was a success.

The box is made of 4 compartments and an LED light, which creates an illusion of a ghost ball that is behind a wall, but becomes visible due to the light bouncing off the plastic, so that your eye can see both rooms at the same time.

Once the projector box was built, my son spent some nice time showing all of us what happens and explaining why. You have to look through a narrow window that reminds of virtual reality glasses and observe the ghost ball action inside the box.

After the main project is finished, there is Tinker Zine, of course. It has lots of reading material and extra smaller experiments. This time my son also created an account on KiwiCo website, did one more 3D project on the app, and also found some cool things he would like to buy - daddy’s wallet might be in trouble.

Tinker Zine has information about awesome illusions, an experiment with a CD case and a candle, how to make vanishing pictures to be used with the phantom projector, a story of Pepper Ghost and directions how to make it, pyramid projector experiment from the app, and Tinker library.

All in all we remain big fans of KiwiCo and will stay that way at least until corona is long gone and forgotten, but probably even longer. The $19.99 is the best money I get to spend all month long!