I discovered KiwiCo‘s stem toy kits quite some time back and decided to sign up a subscription for her these are the foundation for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics ) learning.
Baobao has been progressing really quickly. At 10 months she already figured out basic colours (red, blue, yellow) and shapes (square, circle, triangle). By 18 months she could identify all the colours and shapes (rhombus, parallelogram, octagon etc) and was already completing puzzles or playing with toys meant for children much older. Based on her milestone checks, I estimate her to be ahead in language development by 18 months, cognitive development by 12 months. She is currently 25 months old at the time of this post.
Because of her development speed, it is challenging for us to keep her engaged as anything that is made for her age group bores her. We have received six crates to-date and seen great interest and progress. It has also nurtured her creative thinking and problem solving skills. This post covers the impact of the first crate.
Trying out the Tadpole Crate
Her first crate at 20 months (Tadpole Crate – now replaced by Panda Crate) and the subsequent two after featured a storybook with a frog called Olive along with some activities. At 24 months it was changed to the Koala Crate featuring a koala called Kellan.
What’s Inside?
The premise of the story is Olive wanting to find and construct a slide for herself that was neither too fast nor too slow. The activity was something similar – a slide system made of wood and felt with a ball that you have to roll. The pieces can be assembled in any direction to show how fast or slow the ball moves.
Progress After The First Crate
Within 2-3 weeks of having the story read to her, she could recite the title and first line of the first page from memory. Within 5 weeks, she could remember the first page. But what really impressed me was how she remembered the whole story and applied it to her play at 25 months.
She built a structure from Mega Bloks,said that it is Olive’s house and proceeded to put a toy frog on it. She also said “Olive tired can open door go in and sleep.” She also explained the function of the house (first picture): “Olive can slide down (from the orange piece to the teal piece) and slide to go door and go outside (from the orange piece to the green piece to the pink piece to the door). Olive also can sit there (blue platform). Must put (red circle) so Olive more comfortable.”
