We were excited to receive a kids’ craft activity kit box from BabbaCo:  The Babba Box!

The BabbaBox program consists of a monthly subscription box for kids ages 3-6, delivered to your door filled with projects, activities, books, digital downloads and online content!

It’s a theme-based box with ALL the physical materials plus know-how content to really engage with your kids and starts at ^$29⁹⁹/month.

I have nothing but genuinely good things to say about our Babba Box experience.  The Babba Box:

• comes with everything you need to do each of the several activities, including suggestions and learning objectives,
• is offered right now with some super discounts (check the bottom of the post for awesome coupon codes!)
• are ideal for people with limited space to store craft materials or time to spend researching and building craft activities,
• and are filled with quality materials for 4 open-ended, educational and fun activities.

The one we received to review was a kit with build-on activities about EMOTIONS.

There were four activities in the box:

• A story book about development of empathy within children,
• A feelings magnet activity,
• An emotion recognition journaling activity,
• And a puppet-making activity for kids to act out emotions and practice expressions.

First, we read the book “When I Care About Others”.  It is a cute and relatable story that even our 3 year old could understand clearly.  The pictures demonstrated emotive expressions in a way that a child could pinpoint how the animal character was feeling.

On each page, we discussed what was happening and the children explained why the characters should care about the other characters in the book:  Why were they sad?  What can the bear do to make him feel better?  How can he be a good friend to his friends?

The next activity we did was the Emotion Magnet activity.  First, the kids colored the face printables and drew in “feelings faces” on a couple of blank circles.

This was also a good fine motor skills exercise as our son surprised me with his cutting skills!  (The scissors and colored pencils came with the kit, so I didn’t even have to break out my own craft kit. )

Then, we attached the double-stick magnets to each of the faces and the paper frame we colored and cut-out.  The kids put all the new magnets up on the refrigerator.

The “face” in the picture below was drawn by our 3 year old.

I’m not sure what emotion he was trying to represent, so I call this one, “Confused” (as in, “I am totally confused by what you drew here, Son.”)  :)

We named each of the emotions that were represented by the magnets after the kids took turns placing them into the frame.  This one was “Scared” or “Nervous”.  The kids didn’t know what “Nervous” meant, so we talked about that new word.  I told them that it was another word for “a little bit scared”.

The next day, we did the third activity: An emotion journaling activity.

Using the journal provided in the Babba Box, our daughter peeled off the stickers for the emotions she felt and observed on other’s faces throughout the day.  When she identified an emotion, she placed a sticker in the journal.

Using the “Emotion Finder” glasses in the kit, she walked around the house intent on observing others’ emotions.

The glasses didn’t necessarily do anything special.  But, what they DID do, was reinforce that she was wearing them in order to look at people’s faces to see if she could tell what they were feeling.

She started with her brother.

I promise that photo was not staged.  He was very upset that he couldn’t have more dessert.

She immediately selected the sticker that matched her brother’s face.  Haha!

The last activity we did was the sock puppet-making activity.

The kit came with everything we needed to construct two sock puppets.

Once they dried, the kids enjoyed using them to put on tabletop puppet shows where we talked even more about the different emotions we had felt that day.

I think the funniest and best aspect of this particular kit box is that my kids still use the feelings magnets every day.

Each morning, before breakfast, they change out the magnets, usually from the Happy Face to the Silly Face.  They then make silly faces and sounds and dance around before they have to take their seats at the table.

But, the magnets have also become a part of their communication process with each other.

Just the other night, our 3 year old son hopped up from his chair at the dinner table.  He said, “I’m going to change my magnet!!!”

He changed it from Happy to Mad.  When he came back to the table, he said to his sister, “YOU MADE ME MAD WHEN YOU DRANK MY WATER!”

It kind of shocked all of us.   The kids worked out their drinking cup mix-up “problems”.  Afterward, my extended family talked about how surprising it was that the kids were using the feelings magnets so seriously.

We all agreed that the activities and the children’s internalization of the lessons were impressive, fantastic, and effective.

Yes, if you wanted to just skim through this entire review, all you really need to know is that our Babbaco Babba Box experience made ME feel…..

• Here is a unique code for Critters And Crayons’ Readers to receive 20% off the first box!     CC20OFF
•  BabbaCo is offering the first 3 months of the membership for 33% off (Only $20 per box!).   The coupon code at checkout for this is CC33BTS.
• AND…..You can use both codes!!!!

This is a sponsored post.  In exchange for my honest review, I received compensation in product from BabbaCo in the form of one activity kit box.  All opinions expressed in this post are my own. #BabbaCo