Kiwico Review 10: Panda Crate, Let's Look! with Book Bundle Book I Thought I Saw A Dinosaur!
March 26, 2024
My son was born prematurely. He was born at 26 weeks and 6 days (3 months and 1 day early). If this box is for a baby 19-24 months, that means it should work for Aryi 22-27 months, in theory. Aryi was starting to catch up to his age at about a year. He is now fully caught up and surpassed developmental milestones for his age. That means these toys should be appropriate for him now. We are very proud of how far he has come. I feel that all of this makes our experience with development and play particularly unique.
Wonder Play Guide
We are fully in the new versions of the kits now. This means we get the Play Guides instead of Wonder Magazine and instruction cards. Having everything in one bound guide is far more superior than the previous cards and magazine. This Play guide talks a lot about hand-eye coordination. Dr. D answers a question on vision, there are panda tips, you get instructions for how to play with each of the toys in the crate, and DIY or cheap activities to do.
Kiwico: $0.00
Amazon Dupes: N/A
Star Drop Maze
This toy is super cool. It is all kinds of fun. Aryi loves to play with it. I was a little bit annoyed, they are still having the paint problem that I have talked about many many times. This time, the paint from the stars rubs off on the maze. It is really annoying. It looks like Aryi took a crayon and drew in blue and yellow down the board. But that is impossible, because I do not leave crayons out. I was not able to find a dupe for this on Amazon. This toy is truly unique.
Kiwico: $8.95
Amazon Dupes: NO dupe found
Wooden Color Blocks
I love, love, love these blocks. We have so much fun looking through them and seeing that everything turns blue or yellow, etc. Aryi likes to stack them. He even was able to stack on top of the arch blocks a few times. I think this is great for his fine motor skills. They really made this toy multiuse. They added holes to put your peg people and a board to turn this into a puzzle. I love the thought process that went into these blocks. Yes you can get blocks like this online. Do those fit peg people or have a puzzle board? No. There is a dupe for over 3 times the price.
Kiwico: $8.95
Amazon Dupes: $29.99
Wooden Car and Peg People
This car is cute, but it is just another car, and these are just more peg people. These are pretty standard toys you can get from tons of places. There is nothing special about them. Aryi does love cars, thus he loves this car. You can get something similar on Amazon for twice the price.
Kiwico: $8.95
Amazon Dupes: $16.99
Balancing Crayons
Aryi has crayons, so we did not need crayons. I do think these are super fun. Aryi will take a break from coloring and stack them sometimes. You can get block crayons from Amazon for twice the price.
Kiwico: $8.95
Amazon Dupes: $16.50
I Thought I Saw a Dinosaur
We love this book. This is the best book that has ever come from a Kiwico crate. It is great, because it is hard to find dinosaur books that don’t have the giant names a 1 year old can’t say. This is definitely a developmentally appropriate book and I would recommend this book to everyone. You can buy the same thing on Amazon for about the same price. This is Aryi’s favorite book now. I think they also make a Lion one. I am planning on buying that for him, possibly for his birthday or a holiday basket.
Kiwico: $8.95
Amazon Dupes: $8.89
Worth it?
Amazon Dupes total out to be $72.37 + tax
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 per crate
In my opinion, this is the most worth it crate you could get from a Panda crate so far. These older boxes are getting really good. I do miss the little Poppy books, but Aryi does not. Every single thing in this crate had so much thought that went into it with toys that work together and have multiple uses.
Kiwico: $44.85
Amazon Dupes: $72.37
Check out the related Youtube video by clicking the link below.