Reviewed by
Roxie
ToucanBox is a flexible subscription service that encourages little fingers and minds to stay curious, creative and busy. My little girl, Penny (who turns 4 next week), lights up when her box is posted through our letterbox. I must admit, coming up with a constant supply of art ideas and materials to keep her occupied over lockdown has been exhausting, so my face probably lights up too.
Inside the box, you’ll find a magazine with stickers and three ‘secret’ compartments. This month, the smallest compartment contained a novelty eraser that looks like a crayon to add to Penny’s collection. Inside the larger compartment, you’ll find your activities i.e. step-by-step instructions and materials.
Our first activity pack contained materials to make four adorable ‘Multicoloured Mice’. This activity focused on shaping materials into different shapes i.e. manipulating the felt and pipe cleaners, making curves and bends. The pack contained felt bodies, ears, sticky eyes, jumbo pipe cleaners and sticky back noses. I love activities like this as there is minimal grown-up assistance needed, very little mess and no drying time required. This was a really simple activity that Penny loved. She was incredibly proud of her creations and even took them into her dollhouse and made them into little puppets.
The second activity came in two parts as they often do. ‘Coastline Crabs’ was very similar to the first activity which was a bit of a shame. There was felt circles for the body and pipe cleaners for the legs and sticky back eyes similar to the mice. There was also some cotton wool to pad your crab to make him more three dimensional and two small pegs to represent his claws.
The final project was incredibly simple and almost like a ‘bonus’ activity, however, it was Penny’s favourite. I think it was because it was the messiest and less structured. There was a small rock pool canvas provided as well as a glue pen and glitter sand. Children could also use their own colouring-in materials and create their own seaside display. Penny glued the sand to the crab, stuck the stickers from the magazine on the canvas and had her mouse puppets ‘swimming’ in the pool… and she couldn’t have been happier! This is why I’m a huge fan of toucanBox, it encourages her to use her imagination, be silly and step outside the box while having lots of fun in the process.
By Evelyn 
