Kids love getting things in the mail. It’s even better when their mail is full of something fun and engaging – like a geography subscription box for kids from Canadian company: World in a Box. In this post, I want to introduce you to this company and share our experience with one of their boxes.
What is World in a Box?
World is a Box is a Canadian company who aims to bring the opportunity for kids ages 7-10 to dive into new cultures and places around the world. They do that with carefully curated boxes of activities, maps, games, stickers, and more. You can choose to buy a single, one-time box or purchase a subscription which will send you a new box for either 3, 6, or 12 months depending on which option you go with.
Opening our Egypt Box & Trying the Activities Inside
This year, my 7 and 9 year old have been taking a virtual trip around the world for our school adventures. We have been watching lots of videos, making foods, doing some map work, etc. So, when things like up perfectly for us to test out a box about Egypt right when we were learning about African countries – I gave it a go! When our box arrived, my currently 7 and 9 year old kids were thrilled. The box was basically torn from my hands and they dove right in.
Inside our box about Egypt, we found:
- a full-colour world map poster
- a little stuffed beaver toy
- a postcard
- an activity booklet
- craft supplies
- two sets of cards in little bags
- stickers
We jumped right in, reading through the activity book and introducing ourselves with the characters from the box. The little beaver is the World in a Box mascot: Patrick! In this box, he was visiting his friend Asim the Camel who lives in Egypt.
The world map was spread across the living room floor and the two of them started searching for the countries they recognized already from our studies as well as finding where Egypt was in Africa.
The little cloth bags contained different sets of square laminated cards. One featured a mini-game of memory – match the cards with things about Egypt: a camel, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the White Desert, a caracal, and a dorcus gazelle. The other was a trivia game to test how much you’ve learned about the country you visited. There were only five questions, so it wasn’t overwhelming or “test-like.” Let’s see whether you know the answer to one:
Q: What is the Official Language of Egypt?
A: Arabic!
We took a break from the box after exploring the contents and playing some of the games. Later, we returned to do the activities.
The first was a craft with a camel. Included was a wooden cut out of a camel, plus some string, yarn, and a few beads. My daughter coloured a blanket on the back of the camel first. We attached the beads to the string and then to a hole on the underside of the camel. A loop of string attached to the top for a hook and then we wrapped the whole body in the yarn to give the blanket a textile look and feel. We decided that this was our own version of Asim – the special guest for this box.
Next, we talked about how dung beetles are actually scarab beetles! (Honestly, I had no idea!) Inside the box came some really wonderful modeling clay so we could make miniature scarab amulets. We really enjoyed making little beetles – splitting the clay in two so we could each make one. We added designs and patterns to the body.
I wasn’t sure how well it would stay together after it dried. (Our last clay adventure ended in decapitation failure!) But they turned out fantastically, keeping their heads intact! The only thing that didn’t work was attaching it to a string to make it into a necklace. Maybe I used the wrong string for the camel but the string which was left was too short to be a necklace. We tried to make it a bracelet instead, but the string tore through the back of the clay and didn’t work. It turned out better for us though, because now we have two small little clay beetles which my daughter is enjoying to play with as figurines.
Our Thoughts About World in the Box’s Geography Subscription Box for Kids
We learned a lot about Egypt from this activity box and the accompanying booklet. Honestly, it was surprising to me how much *I* didn’t know! Far too often, studies about Egypt only focus on things like the Great Pyramids, pharoahs, and the discovery of mummies. I was pleased to see that there were so many other things covered in this study.
In this World Box, we learned about the currency of Egypt, the geography of Egypt (and why they need the Nile River, some really interesting animals which I’d never heard of before, what ancient Egyptians believed about scarab beetles, and some really unique facts. Did you know that there’s actually a sunken ancient city in Egypt that one day simply vanished? And yes – it does touch base on the pyramids and mummies.
I love the fact that the activity book is in full colour, that it isn’t just an information dump, but is interspersed with colour photographs of how to complete the crafts and projects, colouring activities and games, and even a recipe. The text is in bite-sized, kid-friendly text, although my new-to-reading 7 year old found some of it hard because it uses unfamiliar to her words in places (like sarcophagus and faience.) But that’s okay because we got to learn together!
In this book, there was a flag to colour, a math challenge to convert currency, a colour-by-number sarcophagus, and a spring egg to design.
We still haven’t tried the recipe yet – but it’s definitely on our to-do list. My kids love making the food from different cultures and seeing what they think of them.
Over the years, I’ve tried and used many different subscription boxes for kids. If I’m being honest, some of them can be “cheap” feeling – but World in a Box’s materials are quality. The paper of the book, the craft materials, the little laminated cards, etc – all were impressive and durable. I like that as a parent, especially if I want to keep using them.
I was thinking how amazing it would be to continue expanding on these memory and trivia games as you add more countries. Could you imagine how many neat things your children could remember after a year of these games?
Patrick now lives on my 7 year old daughter’s bed with all her favourite stuffies. She loves that he’s a little Canadian beaver. I love that he’s adorable – but not baby-ish, something that can be hard when creating cartoon-y characters and boxes.
I think that this geography subscription box for kids from World in a Box was fantastic. We really enjoyed diving in and learning about Egypt together. And we did learn – including me! Which, honestly, made it extra fun instead of just a “keep the kids busy” kind of kit.
Find out more about World in a Box.
Disclosure: I was sent a box from this company to share my honest thoughts and experience. All opinions are my own.
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