Kiwico Review 5: Panda Crate, Chat with Me with Book Bundle Hi! and Let's Chat with THE SAME BOOK!!!!
February 20, 2024
My son was born prematurely. He was born at 26 weeks and 6 days (3 months and 1 day early). If these crates are for a baby 7-12 months, that means it should work for Aryi at 10-13 months, in theory. This means no toys. I feel that all of this makes our experience with development and play particularly unique.
This was the worst mistake that was made so far in our Kiwico experience. Let’s Chat! is basically the updated version of Chat with Me. It is like they sent me the same box twice. Maybe I shouldn’t be as mad since they changed up the crate so much. My main problem with this is that I ended up with 4 crates for babies ages 7-12 months. Does that mean I am going to get 1 less crate for ages 13-24 months. That is not so cool. I emailed Kiwico about the mistake and they assured me I will be getting all the crates. We will say. I don’t know yet if this is a problem that they will fix. What this does allow me to do is directly compare the old kits to the new kits.
Wonder Magazine and Instruction Cards vs. Wonder Play Guide
Every kit at first came with these instruction cards and Wonder Magazine like the Chat with Me crate. This has since been changed to a little flashcard booklet, the Wonder Play Guide with all of the information like Let’s Chat!. You can see both versions below. The cards came just as loose cards. This is a problem, so I am glad they changed it. I punched holes in the cards and added a ring to them to keep them all neat and together. There is a card for each item included in the kit. There are also cards with other activities you can do with your baby that can be done for free with items around your house or that involve cheap products you can pick up from the dollar store. These cards and magazine are amazing tools for learning how to engage with your baby. Unfortunately I am unable to find this edition of the Wonder Magazine. I know I had it. It is somewhere in my house. I would like to more fully compare the two. The Let’s Chat! Wonder Play Guide includes the parts of the brain that are developing sound and language, a blurb from Dr. D answering a question about correction your child’s speech, some definitions of receptive and expressive language and how your baby uses them, some baby signs, and more information about speech and language development. The song is gone. That is upsetting. It also has information that would have been on the Instruction cards in the previous crate. There are cards for the items in the kit and cards for extra activities to do with your kid. The activities on the cards are even the same as the ones in the play guide.
For our purposes I will have photos of the Let’s Chat! Crate on the left of the desk top or first on your phone. Chat with Me crate will be on the right on desktop or second on your phone.
Kiwico: $0.00
Amazon Dupe: N/A
Kiwico: $0.00
Amazon Dupe: N/A
Let’s Chat! Stacking Wooden Animals
These cute little animals include a pig, sheep, and duck (chicken? We say it’s a duck.). These animals are so much fun. You can play with the animal sounds, push them in the tractors, and play with them in the barn. In addition to that, you can stack them. We love these wooden animals.
Chat with Me Stacking Animals
These cute little animals include a pig, sheep, duck (chicken? We say it’s a duck.), and a rabbit. That means this one came with one more animal than the other crate. These are the same animals, so you can do all of the same things with them that you can do with the Let’s Chat! animals. But you don’t have the farm or the tractor. You do have a pull wagon to carry around the animals in. The dupe is a few dollars more.
Kiwico: $8.97
See farm below for dupe.
See farm below.
Kiwico: $7.47
Amazon Dupe: $9.99
Let’s Chat! Wooden Barn
This wooden barn is so cute. I love the doors that open and close to let the animals in. The quality of this toy is above par to me for a Kiwico product. I do not usually expect their wooden toys to be this nice. The Amazon dupe I found is basically all of the toys in this crate, the animals, barn, and tractor. It is basically the same price as these 3 toys as well.
Chat with Me Peek-A-Boo Barn
This is not a barn your animals go in to play. This is a flat barn with busy board-like qualities. You can teach your child about opening and closing doors, sliding doors, being in the barn, and the animal’s sounds. The dupe I found was almost 3 times the price. I will say the quality is not too great on this toy. It has lasted and been a fun toy, but it feels a bit flimsy.
Kiwico: $8.97
Amazon Dupe: $26.99
Kiwico: $7.47
Amazon Dupe: $22.99
Let’s Chat! Wooden Tractor
This tractor is the cutest little tractor, and again the quality of the toys in this particular crate is proving to be improved from previous quality.
Chat with Me Pull-Along Wagon
This crate came with a pull wagon. The quality wasn’t as good as the newer kit. It was very cute though. The purpose of this wagon is to pull around all of your animals. The dupe I found was about twice the price, but it did include blocks.
Kiwico: $8.97
See farm above for dupe.
See farm above.
Kiwico: $7.47
Amazon Dupe: $16.99
Let’s Chat! Animal Cards
Aryi loves these flashcards. He has so much fun with animal sounds. Animals are one of his favorite things to play with. I have written in the Nepali word for each animal since we are trying to teach Aryi both Nepali and English. We have gotten so much use from these cards. They are made of a nice thick cardboard material. The dupe I found was a little cheaper, however you do get more animals and they are made of paper.
Chat with Me Poppy Says Hello
This book is the cutest little animal sounds book. In addition you also get to count, since there is 1 more of each animal until you get to 5. We love this book. This is the only board book Aryi really likes from the Poppy series. I think it is because he just loves the animals that much. The dupe I found was a few more dollars.
Kiwico: $8.97
Amazon Dupe: $5.89
Kiwico: $7.47
Amazon Dupe: $9.97
Chat with Me Mooing Cow
This cow is so cute and definitely the winning toy in the crate. I am sad to see that kids will no longer be getting this cow in the new crate. Aryi loves to shake the cow and make it say Mo. He knew about cows super early because of this toy, it is the second animal (after cats, we have two cats) that he learned to say the name and make the noise. The dupe I found was not nearly as cute and a few dollars more.
Kiwico: $7.47
Amazon Dupe: $9.99
Hi!!! (this book came in both crates)
We absolutely love this book. You get the same one in both crates. Since I ended up with two, I gave one to someone with a baby. It is so much fun to go through and say Hi! like each animal. You can get the same book on Amazon for a similar price.
Kiwico: $8.97
Amazon Dupe: $7.95
Kiwico: $7.47
Amazon Dupe: $7.95
Worth it?
Amazon Dupes total out to be $40.83 + tax for Let’s Chat and $77.88 + tax for Chat with Me.
The Panda crate can come in a few buying options. I paid for 12 crates for 2 years (crates come every 2 months) at $538.20 + tax. This also included the option to get an extra book in each crate.
$538.20 for 12 crates is $44.85 + tax per crate
All of this means that for the price, the new Let’s Chat! Crate is not worth the price and the older Chat with Me is. Of course in the overhaul of the crates, they made it cheaper for them. They even took away a toy, our favorite toy in the entire crate. I am super disappointed with the change overall and super disappointed about the mix up and the repeat crate. If I had to pick one I would definitely pick the old crate Chat with Me. It is altogether a better crate, with the cow, busy board barn, and poppy book. The Let’s Chat! crate is basically just a farm. You can get a farm anywhere.
Kiwico: $44.85 + tax
Amazon Dupe: $40.83 + tax
Kiwico: $44.85 + tax
Amazon Dupe: $77.88 + tax
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