Green Kid Crafts: Ocean Science Discovery Box

Contents as displayed on Amazon

My kids get the Koala Crate and Kiwi Crate boxes and absolutely love them, so I had high expectations for Green Kid Crafts. It's a similar concept--they also have a mail delivery program--but a variety of boxes are also available on Amazon. Since I was preparing for our Ocean unit, I thought the Ocean Science Discovery Box would be a great addition to our hands-on curriculum.
It looked great on the website and I was excited for it to arrive.


When I first opened the box, I was disappointed by the quality of the items and the crafts themselves. I felt like I could've gathered all the supplies myself for a lot less money. There was nothing particularly specialized or that would've been difficult to obtain or create on my own. A perfect example is the Sea Life Rescue bag, described as an activity where kids can "'save' felt sea life caught in nets and learn about bycatch." The bag contained felt squares rather than the actual sea animals as pictured (the kids were supposed to trace their own sea creatures on the felt--no stencils or outlines included), sticker eyes rather than the google eyes pictured, and the "make your own fishing pole" consisted of a pencil and a string.

Still, I had already purchased the kit, so I decided to go ahead and try it with my kids. I hoped it would be better once we started the activities, and as long as the kids enjoyed it, I would be happy.

So we began with the Glowing Jellyfish activity, which was supposed to make three glowing "jellyfish" that the kids could float.  The jellyfish was a supermarket produce bag, with a glow bracelet body. There were problems as soon as we began the activity, since only one of three bracelets worked. I'm sure you can imagine the scene--me trying to do something that's supposed to be fun and two very unhappy kids, disappointed that their bracelets aren't glowing. And to make matters worse, only two of the inner zip-lock bags were included, so I now had one child unable to make his jellyfish float along with a broken bracelet. (I understand these kits are typically made for one child, but the activity was intended to make three jellyfish, whether for one child or not.)

The next activity we attempted was Coral Reef Art. Some of the paint had leaked out of the tiny containers, and what was left was separated. It did mix up okay when I added the water though. The idea was to blow bubbles into the paint container and then smash them down with the art paper. My kids had a great time blowing the bubbles and they thoroughly enjoyed the ensuing mess. However, smashing the paper onto the bubbles did not result in anything like the example drawings. All my kids could get was faintly colored smears, with no round or bubble shapes. We tried it several different ways, but it never turned out. After my kids tired of blowing the bubbles, they were done with the activity, and not at all impressed with how the painting turned out.

We didn't do the other activities in the box, but I don't think I would have gotten any better results than I did with the two we tried. I'm highly disappointed in this box, and will not be trying their other boxes, which I had originally hoped to do. I will not be using any of their products in the future, and would definitely not recommend these to anyone!