Mom's Thumb Reviews: educational activities

Details: As seen on Shark Tank Surprise Ride is a monthly subscription service specifically for children aged 6-11. This monthly box is an educational hand on surprise full of activities that are both creative and imaginative for the children. This company is partnered with country music star Sara Evans and with Hidden Valley Original Ranch to offer both activities and nutritious recipes that give adults quality time to play with their kids. You can purchase your subscription via this Link.

Disclaimer: I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

My Review: I remember seeing this company on Shark Tank, and just fell in love with the idea and products then so to get the opportunity to do a product review. Despite not getting an investment from any of the sharks, they are growing immensely and enjoying the journey. My children are home schooled and are ages 5-8. I was able to let the company rep know, gender and age of my kids, not knowing how this exactly works. But as it turns out the activities that comes are pretty gender neutral, and easy to do with children. The box that I got was in the theme: outer space/ stars. They specifically say "The World in a Box." as its theme. The activities are things like: building a clock, creating a telescope, "Cosmo" the flying alien, and even some Astronaut Freeze Dried Pineapple. We were given a National Geographic Kids activity book with all kinds of fun puzzles to fill out. They include "Surprise facts" that have to do with the box theme. For example; we learned that there are more stars than the grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. We learned about the Latin meanings of A. M. and P. M. This is perfect for anyone who wants their child to have extra hands on learning and creative time.

My kid's love space, aliens, stars, and using their imagination. We have Fisher Price Trio Blocks that they are constantly using to make space ships, rockets, comets, etc for their outer space explorations. So putting this Star themed/ Outer Space themed box into the hands of my Explorers was one of the best things that could happen during the rainy season where we live. Check out the pictures of their adventures. As we did worked on the clock and the spy scope, we noticed some negative things. First of all the stickers for the spy scope aren't very sticky and peeled off really quickly, so after spending 10 minutes decorating the spy scope my son removed everything since they weren't sticking very well.

As we worked on the clock and were doing our best to follow the instructions, we ended up with an extra piece and found out that one of our clock hands flopped around. The instructions weren't as clear as I thought they were, so we ended up just making the clock something the kids can play pretend with until we can figure out what step we missed. (the instructions for putting the gears on was just a picture, but not big enough to figure out which tiny gold washer went where). With this news I feel like this can still be a great opportunity for parents or teachers to give their kids extra hands on learning fun, but take it with a grain of salt if the quality isn't what you would want, or if the instructions aren't as clear as you would like...other companies and products are very similar. My youngest loved the freeze dried pineapples the best!

What is Included: You are given all the supplies you need like stickers, paint, paint brushes, clock pieces, instructions, even disposable Aprons, and easy to read directions. Granted each box will have different supplies according to it's Theme.

Packages: They have monthly, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months packages for different pricing. For more information follow this LINK.

Contest: Local Home School contest via email. You will get an email from me with an invitation to enter. Ends 10/21/14

Pros: great product, awesome themes, fun activities, healthy snacks

Cons: not all instructions are clear, quality isn't all high end.

My Rating: Thumbs Up for awesome ideas and theme and activities, Thumbs Down for quality and clear instructions, given that most toys are similar.

Lately I've been so focused on teaching my kids what they need to know, focusing on their subjects and getting through the school day that I haven't been making school very fun. We are about a month behind on our school due to all the missed days through the school year so we have to school through the summer, which will actually be good so that my kids don't forget anything, and so that they aren't as bored this summer as well.

So I've decided that for the next 35 school days I am going to make school more fun! Today we did something that made reading, writing, spelling, shape recognition, and following directions more fun for both my preschooler and first grader.

At the Dollar Tree I found these packs of sticky foam (similar to play dough, just a different texture) in a bunch of different colors. I let each child pick up a color and bring it home. Some of the foam packs we've used are super sticky and some are not as sticky. So just be aware your children might complain if its super sticky because the little foam balls will stick all over their skin. But letting the foam air out helps it not be so sticky.

My Preschooler loves to be surprised with what we do every day for school, so making daily activities and exercises more fun helps keep that surprise element and helps me be a better teacher.

Using foam to make letters

making shape outlines

making solid shapes

making numbers

3D shapes

following lines or directions

My First Grader has struggled with reading and spelling this year and last year as well. But doing fun activities like this, he really enjoys learning to do his school work instead of fighting it. For this happy smile I'll work harder at making school more fun!