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The Wummelbox subscription box for kids has jumped into a fairly competitive realm of educationally oriented monthly subscription boxes for kids and landed squarely on its feet. One way they have managed to do that is by targeting their projects to narrower age range than some of their competitors. While they may sound limiting at first, it actually allows for a more in-depth exploration of crucial learning skills.

Parents will enjoy the theme-related imaginative and hands-on activities included with each box just as much as kids, as it opens up new and interesting conversations (teachable moments, if you will) and provides opportunities for parents and children to play together.

Parents will also benefit from the enclosed activity cards, which, in addition to explaining the basics of how to do each activity, also provides information about the skills each activity targets. Each card also has a “meter” estimating how much parental involvement will be needed: A little, Some, or A lot.

What’s in the Box?

Midway through each month (sometime after the 15th), Wummelbox will deliver a box of 3 to 4 activities and materials to your door. All the activities are tied together by a particular theme.
The box my Kid Testers and I had the opportunity to look at was the Time Travel box, but past and current themes have included: Gardening, Circus, Dexterity and Color and Light.
Our box contained four activities and all the materials necessary to complete/play them, including a sturdy pair of Fiskar child scissors.

(Fiskar makes great scissors for kids!) We had the Hunting & Gatherers Game, a Cave Painting activity, a Stone Age story to set the mood and everything we needed to build our own Time Machine.

What’s the Target Age of the Wummelbox?

On their website, Wummelbox notes that the target age group for the boxes is from ages 3 to 8 years old. I would agree this is a good target age, although the activities in the Time Travel box might have been geared toward the higher end of the range.

Although our youngest Kid Tester was 3 years old and was enthralled by the Time Machine activity and was enthusiastic about creating a cave in which to hang up his cave painting, he didn’t really understand the concepts behind them. I also felt as though Parental Help meters were pretty subjective depending on a child’s age and skill level.

For example, the Stone Age story card tells a wonderful story about Wummel (a mouse) and his friend Hedgie as they embark on a time travel adventure. The card indicated that only “a little” parental involvement was needed, but the print was small, the writing dense and not easily decoded by beginning or non-fluent readers and younger children needed complete parental involvement to read the story to them.

How Are Learning Needs Met By This Product?

The Wummelbox aims to meet learning needs on a variety of different levels and has a team of professionals, including teachers, pediatricians and parents consulting on the creation of each box.

The card for each activity notes what skills are being targeted by the project or game. In the Time Travel box alone, kids are challenged to practice:

• Movement (fine motor and gross motor skills)
• Thought (self-directed learning, analytical thinking and conversational skills)Senses (sensory play, hands-on learning and integration of the all their senses)

What the Kid Testers Have to Say:

As I mentioned before, our youngest Kid Tester was very taken with building his own Time Machine, from the process of painting the "dashboard" to adding the screws, knobs and stickers to “traveling” once the machine was completed.

He was a little frustrated by trying to get the bolts in place (it’s hard for tiny little hands), but was thrilled to take off to different places. He was not yet able to understand the idea of travelling through time.

Our older Kid Tester, however, was more than able to understand the idea of traveling in time and was happy to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of "landing" in different time eras.

Neither Kid Tester was particularly interested in the Hunter & Gatherer game, but I’m not sure whether that’s because it didn't hold their interest or because the Time Machine had just too powerful a pull!

Final Thoughts:

I think Wummelbox will hold its own in the monthly subscription box market. One thing they’ve done that I really like is created a product that provides room for imagination, as opposed to sending a box of prescriptive crafts. The activities are there as jumping-off points for further learning. The materials are quality, the ideas original and the pricing plans are manageable.

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Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.