Being freelance, I find that I spend quite a bit of each weekend working while Laurie and Ebony hang out. For most of last year they spent their weekends cycling around our local area, stopping off at parks and playgrounds along the way. It hasn’t really been the weather for being strapped to a toddler bike seat lately though, so Laurie and Ebony have found themselves spending more time at home.
When we were offered a Weekend Box to review, I thought it sounded like the perfect pastime for Laurie and Ebony to get stuck into on a miserable winter’s day. Weekend Box was set by Andy, who spotted a gap in the market after searching for gifts for his nieces and nephews. Andy wanted to find something engaging, fun and educational, something that would widen their horizons and teach them about the world. Despite an extensive search, he couldn’t find anything that fit these requirements, and so he created Weekend Box.
Weekend Box arrives by post, and is perfectly packaged to fit through your letterbox, and contains a number of activities to keep you and your children entertained over the weekend. Weekend Box is about replacing parent-child time, in fact it’s about enhancing it. It is filled with fun activities for you all to try, whilst also learning about the world.
I think Weekend Box is perfect for those of us who have amazingly inspired Pinterest boards full of kids activities, but never enough time to actually put those into practice. Personally I like activities that don’t take too long to set up, because there’s nothing worse than spending half an hour preparing for an activity that only provides five pathetic minutes of entertainment. The great thing about Weekend Box is that there is no preparation, all of the planning has been done for you.
Our box arrived a few weeks ago, and was focussed on The Aztecs. We had a busy few weekends, and so instead of Laurie and Ebony doing the box together as I’d planned, I ended up doing it with Ebony during the week. She’d been a bit under the weather, it was bitterly cold outside, and I had run out of ideas for things to do (and I’d already reached my limit for how many times I can watch Frozen in a week), so I dug out Weekend Box. It was focussed and contained a few fun activities for us to try out.
The box contains a number of brightly coloured paper bags, each containing all of the bits you’ll need for a particular activity. There are colour coded information cards too, so you know what to do. We set up the dining table as a craft table, and got to work. Our first task was to try Aztec printing, so we needed to use string and glue to create a pattern on a piece of card. At just three, Ebony was a little young to understand exactly what she was meant to be doing, but she still managed to make a pretty pattern. We left that to dry, and moved on to the second activity.
We were given card and foam rectangles and told to create some Aztec mosaics. The information cards contain examples so you can get some inspiration. I cut up the foam into shapes, and Ebony took charge of the sticking. Ebony loves nothing more than sticking so she really enjoyed this craft activity. The final activity was to create some parrots with some empty toilet rolls and the materials provided. Weekend Box send small bags of paint powder out so that you can mix your own paint, and Ebony found this fascinating. For this activity we were sent a selection of feathers, which we wouldn’t use because we’re vegan. I’m not really keen on things going from the slaughterhouse floor into my home, so we decided to make our own feathers from paper instead. It took a long time to make the two parrots, and Ebony really enjoyed doing it. She called them Elsa and Anna. Obviously.
By this time, our printing pattern was finished, and it was time to mix up some more paint and get printing. Ebony had lots of fun covering the string in paint before imprinting it on the cards provided. I think we’ll try this activity again sometime because it was such a hit.
Weekend Box also contained instructions and some ingredients for an Aztec hot chocolate. This would have been easy to veganise, but Ebony is as yet unaware of the alluring and wonderful world of hot chocolate and I’d like to keep it that way for a little bit longer, so we gave this activity a miss. Instead we just had a warmed almond milk ready when we sat down to start our Weekend Box.
I have to be honest, I wasn’t convinced that the activities in the box would take us very long, but was surprised to discover that two whole hours had passed by the time we’d finished. I think with an older child it would take longer because they would probably take longer on each activity, but I was impressed with two hours for a three year old!
I think it would be great to have a vegan option on the site, allowing you to opt out of any non vegan activities. I wouldn’t really want to sign up for something that was going to send feathers through my letter box every week, and would be concerned about non vegan ingredients in any potential food based activities too. Vegan issues aside, however, this is a great product. Weekend Box is pretty eco friendly too. Everything can be reused and recycled, and 95% of the box and its contents is made from recycled materials.
It usually costs £7.50 per box, but Weekend Box have been kind enough to offer readers your first Weekend Box for free. Visit their website to sign up, and enter promo code FIONA250 to receive your free box. This offer is valid for new customers only, and is limited to one box per household.