WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY???

Thrilled to have been gifted a new product to play with and review this week, but all opinions are my own.

So; some of you may know my ‘feelings’ on craft….I am not the creative type shall we say. My spine prickles at balloons and glue sticks and the sight of glitter sparks beads of sweat in my scalp. No. Craft is not my forte’.

And then I discovered something…could there be a solution????? A helping hand??? A craft ‘Angel’?????

Let’s see…..

Everyone
loves getting mail; especially exciting boxes addressed to your child(ren). I
will admit; I needed time to prepare myself…it did contain cr…cra…oh,
just spit it out, Anna, CRAFT ACTIVITIES! And for those of you who like
surprises, the only tip as to what was in the box this month, was a jauntily
clad fox ready to garden. Indeed. I did breathe a sigh of relief….unlikely to
need glitter in the garden methinks…phew… And it suggests an outside
activity, implying the wind or hose can dispose of the mess…(not forever
stuck in the cracks of our floorboards as a permanent reminder of the day I
relented and produced the glitter tubes).

So
what exactly landed in our laps? A freakishly clever number…another one of those
brilliant business ideas that was totally on the tip of my brain (or so I would
like to think..) You can subscribe to Our Little Foxes for just $25 per month; super straight forward on-line, and it is delivered directly to your door. There
is also a number of items/packages on the website which can be bought as a one
off gift; saves traipsing around the shopping centre with squawking kids
hanging off your legs….(OK; so maybe that’s just my experience shopping for
other kid’s birthday presents with my own children in the toy section…GIVE.ME.STRENGTH!!)

So,
despite a shaky hand in trepidation of what was ahead, I bundled the kids out
in to the sunshine for the great unveiling….no silly crap in the box, but
practical stuff. The little gardening tools were a huge hit, good quality and
my kids are still getting loads of fun out of those…taking all the sand out
of their sandpit and dumping it on the garden, but that’s another story…

The
goal of Our Little Foxes, is to get kids thinking ‘outside the box’ ; such an
important skill, but I will admit that I was kept on my toes. I definitely
would encourage parents to open the box on the sly first (like a sly fox;
BOOM!), have a good read and be prepared. I was not. I lazily imagined I would
open it up and “voila” – craft activity minus mummy. Sit down, have a cuppa,
admire kids having outdoor fun from the garden chair… Not to be. In order to
make it an even better activity, I needed to have a few things prepared. Some
activities did require a few more items that I had to dig deep for in my ‘everything
goes’ kitchen drawer, like glue for instance, but we had a go at most of it.

We
planted seeds…which are yet to ‘do’ anything…fingers crossed on that one. We
rolled clay and made super cool snails which I baked in the oven (now even I
can roll clay ‘snakes’ and I even find it quite satisfying, thank you very
much!). The kids did some colouring in, and twisted pipe cleaners into
something that looked nothing like the picture…but we were outside laughing
with each other. We jammed icy pole sticks in the sandpit (not quite as per the
diagram), then we checked if the seeds had grown yet in that hour…surprisingly,
no, not yet… There was a birdhouse activity, which I am embarrassed to admit
I kind of failed at, but it did open discussion as to other ways we might
encourage birds to visit our garden, what they eat, various breeds, etc.

Monthly
continuity is linked by the provision of activity badges…oh, it brought me
right back to being a Junjarin with Brown Owl at Brownies…Might be quirky fun
to buy a cheap hat that they are sewn on and must be worn each time the fox box
comes out.

So
I am super grateful to Luis at Our Little Fox, for allowing my kids to have a
safe, organised craft play, THAT I DIDN’T HAVE TO PLAN. Perhaps next month’s
theme might be back inside (with plenty of plastic laid about); it might be
about butterflies or balloons or barnyards…and that is the beauty of the
surprise.

So do jump across and check it out…this might be your answer!!