Mamaishness

My Secret Weapon: Ivy Kids Kits Review

Last month, I read a review of Ivy Kids kits at The Mom Creative. Ordinarily, I haven’t been a fan of the subscription box craft kits for kids. It’s nothing personal: sometimes I think they look too simple, sometimes I think that my girls wouldn’t enjoy them, and sometimes the materials just don’t look like they’re worth the money.

ivy kids kits

Ivy Kids was different, though, because each kit is built around an included book, and the activities included go way beyond sticking pieces of foam to each other to make a pre-determined design. There was a discount code, so I decided to give it a whirl.

activities for Mouse Paint

The August kit was centered around the book Mouse Paint, which I love. I also saw that the previous kit was based on Jump, Frog, Jump!, which I had forgotten, but was one of my brother’s favorite childhood books. Now, it is entirely possible that the rest of the kits they make will be about terrible books that I will despise, but I was willing to take the chance. (The discount code didn’t hurt, either.)

The kit arrived, and we have LOVED it. There is an option to add extra materials for additional children, so I did that, and Clara has been able to participate equally with Bethany in all the activities. The teachers/moms who designed the materials made them deliberately multi-level, so even the little board games are accessible to toddlers.

Ivy Kids Kits

Everything is prepared and ready to go in its own bag. The activity that needs glue has its own little glue sticks in the bag, which is a blessing in this house, since those things seem to grow legs and disappear. Also, the paper used is sturdy, and the art materials are reasonably high-quality.

While most of the activities are things I could have *thought* of on my own, many of them are the sorts of things that I dread having to design and actually print, cut, and laminate. I’m not a graphic artist by any means, so the thought of making coordinating mice, for example, for a story retelling activity is not at all pleasant. Opening a bag and using pre-made pieces to do a retelling activity with the girls, on the other hand, is very pleasant.

mouse paint activities

For our family, this kit has been a great afternoon activity. The games, in particular, are attractive enough to the girls that they want to play them over and over again. This month’s kit had a set of color paddles in it, and I think we pulled those out every single day last week. This is why it’s my secret weapon – I can pull it out when I don’t know quite while else to do.

One potential downside I can see is that the materials are probably not durable enough to be left for children to have entirely on their own at all times, unless you have very conscientious and careful kids. Also, the kits say they are appropriate for children through age eight, but I’m not sure I could see a typically-developing child that old really engaged with them by herself. (However, I have also not yet had my own eight-year-old, so I could be wrong.)

We are scheduled to receive our next kit later this month, and I will be sure to update after we receive it. 🙂

NOTE: The nice people at Ivy Kids have no idea I exist, and I get nothing from doing this review. I genuinely loved the kit, and think it’s a resource worth sharing. The book links are affiliate links, and Read It, Make It! earns a tiny commission from any purchases you might make using them.