A box full of fun! Weekend Box Club Review

The Weekend Box Club is a company who provides letter-box sized activity boxes delivered fortnightly to your door packed full of activities to last you over the weekend. Now, we always hope for lovely, dry weekends filled with sunshine and long walks on the beach... but that isn't a guarantee in the UK! These activities are ideal to give you new ideas and how to be a good 'finder-outer' when it comes to child-friendly science tasks. The boxes are aimed at ages 4-6 years and contain 4 different activities; something to cook, something to make, something to explore and something green.

 

 

 

We were lucky enough to receive a Weekend Box to review - so here's what we thought!

 

 

 

The content looks great, with clearly colour coded activity packs and instruction sheets along with almost everything that you need for each activity. The handy sticker sheet helps you to see which activities you have completed - all kids love stickers, right? The larger poster also helps you to track how many boxes you have received and completed, with a free gift in store when you have completed 6 packs.

 

Pot O' Gold

My son loved making this little game and enjoyed playing it with his older sister. After getting the hang of the force required to flick the coins and a few coin-chasing and coin-ducking moments, he soon became an expert!

Rocking Spring Bird

Craft activities are always a winner in many homes and this one was no exception. Everything you need is contained within the pack (except for scissors and a plate to draw around!) - even the glue stick was included! The kept my son happy and he was able to complete the full activity alone, with just a bit of supervision with the scissors! He's decided to make more of these birds to place on the table over Easter as place-markers for our family Easter dinner.

 

 

 

Green Pancakes

My son loves to cook - not just cakes and biscuits, but savoury foods as well. He was really looking forward to making these pancakes. The spice mixes are included in the pack and the rest of the ingredients are basic store cupboard items so most households would have them in anyway.

He wanted to make the recipe himself, so with just me to overlook what he was doing, off he went. He collected the ingredients and read (with a little help) what to do. Now, I can cook and can definitely follow any recipe I am given, but this recipe for green pancakes just did not work for us. There was no mention of chopping the spinach (which we ended up doing as there was no way that it was going to work otherwise!) and the finished mixture was definitely not something that you could ladle into a pan and fry like a pancake. We did persevere and cooked a little in the pan; the taste was nice but was more like fried spinach leaves than a pancake!

 

 

We then tried to analyse what we *thought* was wrong, so we added some milk as non-green/normal pancakes use milk... this resulted in a slightly better pancake but I'm sure something was still wrong! So overall, we were disappointed with the recipe but enjoyed the kitchen experiments we ended up doing instead!

 

Sound Explorers

This activity sheet taught us how sounds travel and helped us to use our other senses (touch and sight) to hear sounds. The link to the YouTube video for the alien-voice maker was definitely a hit and we had an afternoon of funny voices all round! Everything was included in the kit and the fun lasted longer than I'd have expected from straws and a balloon!

 

Overall, the Weekend Box Club is a great idea and great fun - just on this occasion we didn't seem to make a good go of the recipe activity. I'd still recommend the box to other families, so why not give it a try? Using this unique promo code (KATIE94) you can try your first box free - redeem here.

 

You can see what other families have been getting up to on their Facebook page here or via Twitter here. Pop over and give them a 'like' - they really are lovely people!

 

 

 

 



Visiting @Bristol, At Bristol!

'At Bristol' is a great city centre science museum perfect for a family day out. We spent the later part of an afternoon here recently and thought we'd share with you what we thought!

The museum is over 2 floors and is well spaced to allow easy access for prams and wheelchairs. The exhibits are all hands-on; so much in that it was difficult to decide where to start! When you buy your tickets, you receive a wristband which you can scan on various exhibits as you go along and then by visiting the 'At Bristol' website from home, you can download your results and 'experimental findings'!

Our favourite part of the museum that we saw was the human body area. There's lots of different experiments to take part in - everything from hearing and smell to bones, muscles and energy!

There's also motion and physics displays showing how pulleys work and problem-solving, for example transferring kinetic energy to light energy. I've always loved science and my children seem to be taking after me in that way! They were really interested in everything that we saw and we will definitely return to see the remaining exhibits that we didn't have time to explore.

My daughter especially liked reading the weather forecast using the auto cue and 'blue screen'. There are also different activities at various times throughout the year - live Science shows and 'Spring Alive' are running at the moment so keep an eye on their website for up to date information.

Just one tip - we arrived late on in the afternoon and purchased a late entry ticket (available 1 hour and a half before closing) - this didn't give us enough time to see EVERYTHING but saved us about £8 per adult and £5 per child (approx. £34 for our family!) so I'd recommend either arriving as early as you can to see everything in one go or if you only have a short amount of time to spare, arrive 1 1/2 hours before they close. There's no mention of this discount anywhere that we could see in the reception/booking area so make sure you ask!

Also, if you Gift Aid your tickets, you receive vouchers to spend in the gift shop - a win/win situation! There are lots of different things to choose from, ranging from pencils and rulers up to larger items and toys/science kits. 

Overall, this was a great afternoon out in a great part of Bristol - why not visit if you're in the area? You'll be amazed at what you will learn!

You can keep in touch with them via Facebook here or Twitter here for regular updates and fun!

Twinkl Half Term Activities - How did we do?!?

Well, we had great fun this week - a couple of days out in Bristol (Tyntesfield & At Bristol) and one a bit closer to home (Danger Point) along with plenty of activities indoors too!

We used the 'Weekend Activities' decision mat to help us to decide what to do through the week... my children closed their eyes and pointed randomly on the decision mat. We covered going to the countryside, sleepover, visiting a museum, writing, drawing and cooking!

The mat was really useful to stop any arguments about what to do - you can find the 'Weekend Activities' mat here. There are other words mats available to print too; why not have a browse and use them yourself?

 

My youngest really enjoyed making the Astronaut from the Twinkl website (link to instructions here) - he managed to complete it himself with just a little bit of help piercing the holes for the split pins. Actually, he wanted to (and was pretty sure that he could!) do this himself but it was me who decided the 'piercing job' was mine to do!

To get a bit of reading/writing/drawing into our half terms days, we used the 'At Home I See...' writing frames. These are ideal to use for any theme and for any age. We used each room as a theme but you could ask your children to find things that are blue, or begin with a certain letter - the scope for this activity is endless!

Lastly, we had great fun with the Science Sparks experiment sheets. I have to admit, I love the science of how things work and why but it's often difficult to explain to a child. With these experiments, you can actually SEE the science and so my children were fascinated by the experiments, so we felt that these worksheets were really engaging.Pictures to follow as we had a bit of a glitch with the camera!

There are plenty of other great ideas on the Twinkl website - make sure you explore the site and start planning your Easter break!