We were quite excited to be asked to for an animal Busy Box review; having looked on the website they looked like a great idea – we are always looking for great kids craft kits and this seemed like an excellent idea.
First impressions
It comes in a cardboard box with a little handle and a picture on the front telling you what it is. We thought it was nicely presented. On opening it was a definite wow! The box is full of all sorts of goodies to enable you to stretch your imagination and create whichever animals spring to mind.
What a lot of stuff for £9.99!
What was inside?
Many things!! There are sheets of A4 coloured paper, lolly sticks, pipe cleaners, coloured matchsticks, sequins, lick and stick shapes and animals, sticky foam shapes, feathers, polystyrene balls, a pigeon to colour, build and fly, an animal mask to colour and decorate and an alligator to decorate! Wow! Where will we start?!
How was it to use?
We spent a good couple of hours sorting through all the bits and creating. We needed some assistance from daddy as I’m not very creative! Mary first decided she’d like to make a zebra puppet, so they set to work cutting and sticking and here is their creation!
Mary really enjoyed herself and the concentration on her face was lovely to see. Next she decided she’d like to make an ostrich! This was a bit of a challenge, but again she concentrated really hard and had a great time!
What did mummy and daddy think?
We thought this was a fantastic product and will defiantly be buying some for presents in the future! The only comment I have is it would have been nice for uncreative people like me if there were maybe a few pictures of ideas of what you could make in the box. We did fine as daddy stepped in, but I would have struggled on my own!!
What did the child think?
Well, Mary thought this was amazing! She was very excited on first seeing the contents and didn’t stop asking ‘when can we use my busy box’ until we made time! She really enjoyed her couple of hours creating with daddy and the best part is there is still so many bits left that I think we have a good few hours of creating yet to come! I asked her what score would she give it out if 10 and she said 20!! I think that’s a definite thumbs up!
Age suitability
I’d say this would be good from age 3. Adult supervision required to get the best out of it is a good idea!
Overall 9/10
This a fantastic product. Such a simple idea but I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. The really nice thing is there are all different boxes to chose from. There is a dinosaur box, a girl-y box ( that I think we will have to get at some point), a nature box, the original box and of course Christmas ones for when that time comes around again!
This one gets a definite 9/10!! Fantastic product and enjoyed by all of us! Even Mary’s teenage brothers liked the look of it and would have happily joined in given the chance (I think)!!
The only downside was that it needed a good deal of adult supervision for Mary, but for older kids, that may not be required.
Look at Mary go – and then we had a Zebra and a rather dashing little birdy!
Helen
Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine! Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time. KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10. It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania. Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on. Get in touch TODAY!