Girls Can! Crate: How to empower your self-rescuing princess!

A while ago I received a Girls Can! Crate and OMG y'all! This thing is so cool! It's full of color and mysterious packets and and ideas to make amazing things! I would have loved something like this when I was a kid!

I was a crafty kid. I grew up living pretty close to my cousins who were my same age, and we spent a lot of time together. But I also have a lot of happy memories spending hours playing in my room by myself. It seems my introvert tendencies started early. I was pretty much always making thing -- coloring, painting, cutting up construction paper and gluing it together in weird shapes, crocheting clothes for my dolls.

If was wasn't making something I was reading. Sometimes fiction, but a lot of times history. Or the encyclopedia. I always loved diving into the encyclopedia. It had so much precious information in there!

When this box arrived, my inner 6 year old was ecstatic! First of all, the outside of the box is adorable and I had so much fun just trying to guess what was inside. Of course, I immediately dumped all my boring grown-up mail on the table and squeeed like a little girl as I opened it!

What I found inside was practically magical! A box full of colorful paper with mysterious items nestled in with markers, blocks, pipe cleaners, scissors, tissue paper, glue and so many other wonderful crafty necessities! As I pulled each item out, it felt like I was unpacking a wonderful present that just kept on getting better.

Eventually the adult in me returned and began to look a bit more closely at the items, pulling out the instruction sheets and looking over the projects with a bit more attention. I loved what I saw through my adult eyes too. They're built to appeal to every kind of learner, and incorporate a range of subjects -- math, science, history, social studies -- in each box's group of projects.

Grown-ups will be happy to know practically everything is included -- scissors, string, glue -- so they can pretty much set the kids up somewhere with the box and let them go to town!

My box was the Malala Yousafzai: The Undaunted Educator crate, and it was chock full of activities and things related to Malala's story. Reading through the instructions, it was clear they've spent a lot of time thinking about how kids learn and how best to get them excited about these projects. Everything is in age-appropriate language, and there are plenty of opportunities for the kids to personalize each project -- whether through making an ornament with their own name or some other design, selecting which items to put on their story cubes, or how to decorate their globe. Plus, once they're done with the activity, they have something to play with!

In fact, I was more than a little sad that I don't know very many kids in the age range for Girls Can! Crate, and started to seriously consider putting out a call to my friends to send me their kids to test this thing out. But I didn't. I just indulged my inner 6 year old a little more as I formed pipe cleaners into my name to create a crystal ornament. [This is one of the few instances where an adult would be needed to help boil the water.]

The makers of Girls Can! Crate, Big Little Ones, LLC, have really come up with a fantastic subscription box that is perfect for curious and crafty kids! It's intended for kids between the ages of 4 and 8. Obviously, kids who can't read well will need assistance working through the activities, but I can imagine this to be a great box for older kids to tackle mostly on their own. In fact, I was really thinking this would have been the perfect thing to take with me on my week-long summer visits to my Granny's house.

Each Girls Can! Crate is built around a theme based on the story of an amazing woman -- Bessie Coleman, Malala Yousafzai, Frida Kahlo, Wangari Maathai, Grace Hopper -- and includes a 20-page activity book filled with information about her and includes 2-3 activities and experiments related to her story. I received this crate for free with the request to give an honest review. So, here goes: Honestly? I love it!

And what's not to love? Fun and engaging activities based on the lives of great women of all walks of life, encouraging girls to explore their creativity while learning math and science and history? Yes, please! More like this! Each Girls Can! Crate is a perfect activity box for the next generation of self-rescuing princesses!

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