Weekend Box – January 2018

The Weekend Box Club is a membership organisation created to provide high quality activities for you & your children to enjoy together.

By providing you with the things you need when you need them, The Weekend Box Club allows you to spend quality time getting to know your children and watching them develop key life skills as you spend time together.

The Bumper Box, which I am reviewing, contains four fun activities to Make, Bake, Explore & More. It costs £8.95 a month, with free delivery. The age range is 3 – 8.

My assistant Little C is seven, so is a great age to be trying this out! I should also say that the weather was so horribly dark and dreary that we had to have all the kitchen lights on, and so the pictures are not as well lit as I would have liked! So apologies if they look less than wonderful, kitchen LED spotlights are not great for reflective surfaces. However they are all genuine ‘action shots’!

So, the box itself looks very cute.

It’s addressed to Little C, which is very thoughtful. Children love getting their own personal mail! It fits through the letterbox, and is very easy to open.

The whole box is beautifully decorated!

Inside are four bags, each with a different activity.

Each box is themed, and this month is the Ancient Egyptians. There are some fun facts on the other side too!

The Egyptian Collar Necklace was Little C’s first choice for activity.

There is a convenient list of additional items you will need, which are things you should have around the house anyway, such as scissors and tape.

Cutting out the collar shape was probably the trickiest thing about this. There wasn’t a template, so I drew an approximation of the shape on the lovely gold card, then Little C cut it out, along with some tinfoil shapes.

Sticking and gluing is always fun!

The little gen stickers included were very nice for some additional sparkle!

Then out came the trusty gel pens to add some extra decoration!

Making an Egyptian Sistrum was fun, but quite complicated.

I found some cardboard that wasn’t too thick, and we stuck the yellow paper on both sides. I did the cutting out of the template and the cardboard, as it was definitely a little to difficult for small hands. However Little C cut out the strip of card when the bells would be attached, and made the slits and holes in it without any problems. We also decided to tape the strip onto the handle for extra security.

The gold pipe cleaner and bells were simple to thread. We

This is really effective! It makes a lovely sound as well.

Honey Biscuits!

We needed to add egg and butter, but fortunately we had plenty of both. I didn’t plan ahead very well so the butter was a little cold, so I got to do the work of creaming the butter and sugar together! At least I remembered to switch on the oven before we started.

Little C did the egg and vanilla.

Mixing the honey into the creamed mixture was easy enough though, as I had softened it up enough!

The flour was mixed in, and the dough was ready to roll. Technically the mixture made four biscuits, but Little C managed to make five!

We slightly overbaked them (my fault not paying attention), but I have to say they were absolutely delicious!

While the cookies were baking we made the final project, making a Mini Egyptian Scroll.

Painting the paper with the wet teabag was satisfyingly messy! The instructions warned that it could take quite a while for the paper to dry, but I had other ideas…

It went in the oven with the cookies, and was dry in about three minutes!

After trimming the paper down, the dowels included were stuck to each end, then rolled up to fix them in place.

Once that was done it was time to draw some hieroglyphics.

I looked up the hieroglyphic alphabet and Little C copied her name down, then added a cartouche and the other symbols on the card.

Then it was rolled up and tied neatly.

We managed to get all the activities into one picture!

This was a very enjoyable set of activities. Little C’s favourites were the cookies and the scroll.

I like the four little individual bags, which means you can do the activities, or like us, do them one after the other.

The instruction cards are clear and very nicely designed. These projects definitely require some parental assistance, but I think that’s pretty much to be expected, especially at the lower end of the age scale.

There’s some nice opportunity for creativity in the collar necklace, as well as more structured things. I particularly like the baking activity, as I think it’s very important for children to cook, and the results were delicious! We’ll definitely be making the honey biscuits again.

You do have to provide a few bits and pieces yourself, but nothing you wouldn’t expect to have around the house. At under £9 a month it’s a terrific budget option and I think you get plenty of bang for your buck. If you want to have some creative fun with your children without breaking the bank, this works beautifully.