Weekend Box – February 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! This another review where the pictures are lit by quality LED overheads (thanks to winter cold and dark), so please excuse the less than lovely look.  However they are all genuine ‘action shots’!

The box is brightly coloured and looks very appealing.

Even the inside is beautifully decorated!

This month’s theme is Valentine’s Day, and there are four love-themed activities inside, each in their own little bag.

Also included is a booklet with instructions, some colouring, and a little comic to complete.

Jam Tarts, yummy!

Flour and jam were included in the bag, we just needed to provide 15g of butter and some water. Easy peasy, plus great for practicing using the kitchen scales!

The butter and flour were rubbed together, then water was added to make the dough.

Perfect!

This needed to go in the fridge for about half an hour, then we rolled it out.

The perfect amount for a few little tarts!

The instructions suggested using a glass to cut out the circles. This was the first thing that came to hand.

The dough made three neat circles, and I gathered up the spare dough and made a rather less neat one for the last tart! Anyway, time to add the jam.

Then twenty minutes in the oven and they were done.

Don’t they look delicious? Little C thought so. She thought so even more after she ate two in quick succession!

The next craft was to make a Beaded Heart Keyring.

Little C has done a lot of pipe cleaner crafts, so this one was a piece of cake. Attaching the pipe cleaner to the ring and then threading the beads. The only bit I helped with was twisting the end up so the beads didn’t fall off.

Doesn’t this look cute? Oh, and you get little stickers to add to the booklet when you complete each activity!

Make a Valentine’s Day Card! Now, we had an unexpectedly busy half term, so we didn’t actually manage to get to this box until the weekend after Valentine’s Day. However it didn’t matter at all, as it just meant Little C had a great excuse to make Daddy a lovely card!

The bag contained a red crayon, red tissue paper, and some lovely glitter glue (that stuff is amazing) plus of course a blank card and envelope.

The finished card! I love the little bits of tissue at the corners, it makes a nice 3-D effect.

Finally, making a Moving Love Bug! This was very cute and clever.

Cutting out circles for the body, fortunately they didn’t have to be perfect!

More pipe cleaners for the legs! A roll of tape was included, which is very handy to have around, especially as this one required lots of sticking.

Now to add the heart and the eyes! Now, not only was this just a cute little creature, you also could make it move! The straw (included) was cut into pieces and stuck on the back, the lovely red and white string threaded through, and then as you pull the strings apart the bug climbs up!

There it is hanging on the living room door.

Well, this was a charming little collection of activities! Even though we were a little late with the Valentine’s theme, it wasn’t a problem at all, as you should be showing love every day, not just once a year!

I love making cards, and I think it’s great to encourage children to do the same, it’s much more personal than just buying something.

The love bug was a lot of fun, and it’s amazing  how the simple mechanism can produce a very impressive movement!

The keyring would make a lovely little gift, and the threading and twisting is also great for practicing fine motor control, especially for the younger end of the scale.

The jam tarts were particularly successful, and even though they are very simple they are absolutely delicious. It’s also great practice for making pastry! This is an recipe that’s easy to reproduce with whatever jam you have in the fridge.

As for the booklet, I really like it. Previously the instructions have all been on individual cards, which is nice but too easy to lose! I think having them all together in booklet form is a great improvement, so I hope they keep doing this!

You need to provide the odd thing, like scissors and a tiny bit of butter, but I think this is entirely reasonable, it’s nothing you wouldn’t have anyway.

The overall presentation is excellent. The bright colours are perfect for young children, and having each activity in individual bags means you can space them out however you like. You can do everything in one session, or take your time and do a different one every day.