BabbaBox To the Rescue: Review and Giveaway

You know those moms who are always posting pictures on Facebook of their smiling children making adorable crafts that they will later give to their teachers/ neighbors/coaches/mail carriers who will be oh-so-pleased to receive them because they’re functional and look professionally produced?  Yeh, I am not one of those moms.  I do love to craft (yes, that’s a verb) with my kids but we’re more on the tape-things-together-and-throw-them-away-after-a-week plan right now.  Oh, I can Pinterest with the best of them but when it comes to the actual doing…

Fortunately, now there are craft kit subscription services that help moms like me with just enough brain power left at the end of the day to follow a few simple directions.  The way these services work is, you sign up to pay a regular fee and receive a different craft box in the mail each month.  Each box has a different theme with several artsy-craftsy-sciency activities and clear instructions for each.  The monthly service can be stopped and restarted at any time.  Sample themes include: outer space, gardening, pirates, color, wind, and bugs.  BabbaBox is one such subscription service and they were nice enough to send us a box to review.  This month’s theme was Rainbows, which are scientifically proven to be irresistible to small children.

The box was stuffed full of the following: materials to make a rainbow sunhat (more about that later), a prism, a giant bubble wand (because bubbles have “rainbows” inside them. Get it?), several straight, untwisted pipe cleaners (who knew they came that way?) for creating your own bubble wands, and a cute book about a little boy looking for rainbows.  We started with the prism.  I read aloud about light refraction and spectrums while my daughter laughed maniacally yelling, “There’s a rainbow on your head, Mommy!”  Science lesson – CHECK.  After she calmed down, she copied the colors she saw in the rainbow on to the sheet provided.  She chose black instead of violet but whatever.  Next, we got busy making our own bubble wands.  We gave little brother the included plastic bubble wand to keep him busy while his sister and I twisted and shaped the pipe cleaners.  Square bubble wands, triangular bubble wands, duck-shaped bubble wands (??) – we tried them all.  I had my daughter predict what shape the bubbles would turn out (They all come out spherical.  Shhh!  Don’t tell!).  The rainbow hat was next and required a little prep to keep from making a mess  (Who am I kidding?  I mean a further mess).  We put the simple white sunhat on a plastic bag and my daughter used the included spray bottle (FYI – Spray bottles make the best toys EVER) to wet the hat.  We then tore pieces of the colored tissue provided into squares and strips (Fine Motor activity!) and covered the hat with them in random patterns.  More spraying ensued – mostly, but not entirely, on the hat.  We allowed the hat to dry overnight and completed the other side the next day.  What we ended up with was a cool, tie-dyed style hat.  At bedtime, we read the sweet story book about rainbows, written by the author of Corduroy.  A great end to our crafting weekend!  A nice little bonus for mom – especially with the weather this week: a retractable umbrella so the fam can enjoy rainbows without getting drenched. And, it was green – score!

Many craft kits offer additional craft and activity ideas, discussion questions, websites, or smart phone apps.  For example, in this box, I received instructions for downloading the game Rainbow Blocks on my iPhone.  After I checked it out (repeatedly), I let my daughter try it.  It’ll take a while for her to get it but I’ll gladly play it in the meantime.

We had a fantastic time with our BabbaBox and it was really nice to have fun, structured craft time with my girl that I didn’t have to spend hours planning.  I especially liked that this box provided learning opportunities she can continue to use whenever she wants like the prism (she can put rainbows on other people’s heads, too!), the story book, and the iPhone app (OK, she can’t use that whenever she likes – I’ve got stuff to do).  Also, she learned the concept of color transfer through the hat activity, which can be applied to new activities.  Like, apparently, piling scraps of construction paper on the white table and seeing what happens when she pours water on top.  We’ve had to set some guidelines…

Want to try a BabbaBox with your 3- to 6-year-old?  BabbaCo has generously offered to give a box to one lucky BirminghamMommy!

To enter the giveaway:

1. Leave a comment on this post telling us why, at this point in the summer, you NEED a BabbaBox to occupy your kids.

To earn additional entries, you can do each of the following once.  Leave a comment here for each additional entry:

2. Visit the BabbaCo Facebook page and thank them for the giveaway
3. Tweet about this Giveaway “@BirminghamMommy is giving away a BabbaBox from @BabbaCo http://ow.ly/cAX35”
4. Share this giveaway on your Facebook

Giveaway will end Thursday August 2nd at Noon.  A winner will be chosen at random on Friday, August 3rd and will receive a BabbaCo Box by mail within a couple of weeks.  Good luck and Happy Crafting!

Thanks to BirminghamMommy Contributor Kristen Berthiaume for trying this out and sharing her findings!