Review - Weekend Box, a fortnightly craft and activity box

This week we've been having a lot of fun reviewing a Weekend Box. The Weekend Box aims to be a fun and educational box of crafts, recipes and activities, all aimed at children aged 3-6 years old. The activities are neatly packaged inside a handy box which fits easily through a letter box, and each box costs £7.50, delivered monthly or fortnightly. There is no commitment, and you can pause your boxes at any time.

Each box has a theme, and our theme was the Aztecs, with a box containing three craft activities and a recipe. Not all the ingredients for the cooking activity were included, and customers will receive an e-mail with details of the extra ingredients required when the box is dispatched.

I loved how everything fitted so neatly into the compact cardboard box, with each activity clearly separated into a coloured paper bag with corresponding coloured activity card. There is a sheet of stickers to stick on the cards when the activity has been completed and the base of the box forms a certificate to complete when the activities in the box are finished.

The activities in our box were:

Aztec Hot Chocolate

This was definitely the one to start with! The box included some special Aztec spices, to which we needed to add 50g dark chocolate, 50g milk chocolate, 200ml milk and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence. Luckily after Christmas we still have plenty of chocolate in the house which we could use up! The Aztec Hot Chocolate was pretty easy to make, and there was enough for four delicious mugs.

Aztec Mosaic Coaster

To make the Aztec coaster we were provided with two sheets of sticky backed foam and two sheets of thin cardboard, along with some pattern inspiration. We cut the foam sheet up into simple mosaic shapes, which were stuck down to decorate the coaster.

I really liked that this activity was suitable for a range of ages - older children can help to cut out the foam shapes and think about copying some Aztec patterns, and younger children can arrange the pieces however they like, but still be involved in thinking about how to fit the pieces together.

Aztec Parrot

We always keep quite a collection of old toilet roll tubes around, and Mia loved the opportunity to up-cycle them into some colourful parrots, inspired by the Aztec people's sacred bird, the Quetzal. The Weekend Box included enough lovely bright poster paint, googly eyes and feathers to make two birds, and we have since gone on to make a few more with our own materials as they look so good!

Aztec Pattern Prints

Making the Aztec pattern prints was a two step process. First we glued string down to cardboard to make the stamps, then we mixed up paint and printed our designs onto coloured paper. We've not done this before, and the children loved it. They each made several different stamps, and I loved watching their concentration while they painted the string and pressed it down to print. They were so proud of their work! This idea has certainly inspired me, we'll be returning to this painting technique I'm sure.

I found that the Weekend Box contained just about enough materials to carry out each craft twice, and indeed could probably be stretched to include more children too, if you were able to supplement with your own materials. You can also add a sibling to your account for an additional £4 per box to make sure that you'll have enough.

We received a Weekend Box in exchange for a review.