This weekend Harry was very poorly and that limited what I could do with Emmy, due to him being asleep on me or needing to be carried around. It was a godsend that we had been sent a Toucan box recently.
What is a Toucan Box?
It is a box pre-packed with activities for children aged 3-8.
The boxes are themed and work alongside the national curriculum with learning goals.
I was sent a Grande box which is pre-packed with all the materials for 2 activities. Our theme was Spies and inside our kit were:
A fingerprinting kit
Secret Writing activity
Wrapped present (Book)
Parent sheet with extra activities on you could try yourselves to extend the fun
As a parent I like that everything you need for your project is included in the box. The projects were clearly separated into two separate boxes meaning there was no mixing the two up, hunting around for pens/paper/glue – just open the box and you are ready.
Very handy as I was contained to a sofa under Harry. Emmy was able to sit next to me and we completed these together easily.
The instruction’s are very clear and very easy to follow.
First up was finger printing. Included in were 3 fingerprint cards, blue ink, a magnifying glass and a pen.
Emmy wrote our names on the cards, added our ages and I wrote the date for her. She then printed each finger in turn and printed into the correct sections on her card. We used Harry’s wipes to remove the ink from each finger before continuing.
She took great joy in fingerprinting Harry while he was asleep and then doing mine.
We talked about what fingerprints are and how everyone’s are different (we looked at them using the magnifying glass) and then I explained to her that when you touch something your fingerprints are left – I showed her by leaving the ink on her fingers and she touched the TV, windows, shelves and a few other things. We talked about the police and how they use fingerprints to hunt for the bad people.
She had great fun – although was a little sad there wasn’t a card to do Daddy’s prints too.
Secret writing was next. Everything for this was also included except for scissors to trim the red film after but we actually didn’t bother doing that.
Emmy had to glue the red cellophane onto the frame. Then on white paper you write a message lightly with Blue Crayon, then scribble all over it with Red Crayon. Place the message into the frame and you can reveal your message.
Emmy seemed to prefer it when I wrote her a message and then we read it together. She definitely wasn’t as keen on this activity as the previous one and lost interest quickly – this would be fun for slightly older children though to pass secret messages to each other, I remember doing similar in class in my own time with my friends.
The Grande boxes cost £9.95 and have a different theme every month. There is also an option to include more materials in this kit for a sibling to join in too, which costs an extra £4.95.
There is also a Petite box which has all the materials for 1 project – costing £3.95 which has new projects every fortnight and a Super Box which includes activities for 4 projects and costs £16.95
If you would like to try one of these boxes yourself for FREE then please enter code EMMYSMUMMY at checkout for a FREE Petite box head to the website to get yours nowwww.toucanbox.com
Disclaimer: We received our box in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts and opinions are our own.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Clare
Hi, I'm Clare (Emmy's Mummy). A former Nanny and Mother of 2 - Emmy (born February 2010) and Harry (born October 2012). We are Essex based and share our adventures and misadventures of a busy crazy life.
