Weekend Box – June 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, so please excuse the less than lovely look.  However they are all genuine ‘action shots’!

The box is brightly coloured and addressed to your child, so they get their own personal mail! It has lots of friendly characters, each of whom are featured in an activity.

This month’s theme is Swashbuckling Pirates! This is the activity booklet, which contains instructions plus some extra colouring fun.

Each activity is packed in an individual bag, with a couple of extra larger pieces of paper separately in the box.

The first craft, making a Pesky Pirate Face.

Paper for the face and headscarf was included, as was a googly eye. This involved cutting out the face and scarf, and then decorating it. Little C decided to draw on an eye instead. Her pirate was also a girl with purple hair!

A nice little touch that was included in this activity was the gold ring for an earring!

Next, making a Pirate’s Parrot and Treasure Map.

First was dyeing the paper with a teabag for the treasure map. It makes the paper look crinkly and brown and old.

While it was drying it was time to make the parrot.

I found an old loo roll, which was covered in the lovely red paper and the feathers stuck on for wings. There were two more googly eyes to stick on, and then we cut out extra pieces of leftover paper for a beak and feet.

How cute does this look?

The last craft was making a Cork Pirate Ship!

Joining the three corks together with the rubber bands was a bit tricky for little hands, so I did that while Little C concentrated on making the skull and crossbones sail. There was chalk to decorate the black paper, but she ended up using while gel pen because it was easier to make a more detailed picture.

And there is the completed ship!

The Salty Sea Popcorn activity was actually the first thing in the booklet, but we ended up doing it last

Making popcorn is very easy and very fun. There was a little package of kernels, and you just needed to add a bit of oil. Of course, this isn’t something a child can do on their own, but they can pour in the kernels and watch it pop. When it’s finished they can add the salt (we added butter as well!) and stir it up.

When it had cooled down we put it in the bag (included) and made a label. Delicious!

This is such a great set of crafts. They’re simple enough for little children, but the results are excellent.

I think the popcorn is inspired. First of all, it’s delicious. Home made popcorn is much nicer than shop bought, and way better for you than microwave popcorn. It’s very easy to make, and children always love watching the kernels pop. Plus you only need to add salt and butter, which is far better than a lot of sugar!

This box does require a fair amount of parental supervision and assistance, but as it’s aimed at age 3 – 8 it’s to be expected! These boxes, while great fun for children, are also a great way of doing fun activities with your child without the hassle of coming up with original ideas yourself! You need to provide the odd thing, like scissors, and a bit of oil for the popcorn, but otherwise everything is in the box ready to go.

At £8.95 per box I think this gives excellent value for a budget box. You can keep the booklet and get creative again, and the activities take up a good amount of time. The instructions work well, and the themes and activities themselves are neutral, fun, and engaging!