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Introducing Our Newest Arrival: Panda Crate!

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Panda Crate — our newest line for babies and toddlers. 

Panda Crate was developed especially for little ones (aged 0–24 months), grounded in the science of early childhood development, and made helpful, practical, and convenient for parents. We worked closely with researchers at Seattle Children’s Hospital to ensure that all the products and information delivered in each crate are perfectly suited for your child’s developing brain. 

The products and information included in each Panda Crate are developed and tested to be developmentally appropriate for specific age ranges, so you’ll always get just the right crate at the right time. In fact, the Panda Crate line is broken up into five separate age bands:

    • Birth-2 months
    • 3-6 months
    • 7-12 months
    • 13-18 months
    • 19-24 months

We know first hand that the first months (and years) of your child’s life can be often busy, sometimes confusing, and seemingly never-endingly sleep deprived. We’re here to help parents feel more confident in answering all those questions around “What’s best for my baby? Is this normal? What should I be doing with her now??” And we will always do it in a way that is easy (we distill all the research for you), convenient (all the products and info are delivered to your door) and fun (because, goodness knows, parenting is already enough work)! 

The bottom line: Panda Crate allows you to focus on bonding with your baby while we take the guesswork out of what’s research backed and developmentally appropriate. 

If you’re familiar with our other subscription lines, you will notice one difference with Panda Crate: these deliveries will arrive at your home every other month instead of monthly. The contents of the crate, however, will be roughly double that in a monthly crate. We’ve made this change to allow us to group together more toys and materials for parents to use across a two-month stage — to better support the rapid pace of babies’ and toddlers’ development and the wide spectrum of timing along which individual children grow.

With the launch of Panda Crate, KiwiCo now has the perfect solution for any kid — or kid at heart — ages 0 to 104! Check out Panda Crate and all the rest of our lines at www.kiwico.com.

Cheers from our family to yours,

Sandra – CEO, Founder, Mommy of 3


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Science Fair Projects for 9th Grade


These science fair projects for 9th grade are perfect for older kids to explore advanced science concepts and tinker with some more exciting materials.

1. Pressure Bottle Rocket

Water squirters work by pressurizing reservoirs of water with air. As you pump the squirter, it gradually adds air to the reservoir, increasing the pressure. When you pull the trigger, the pressure is allowed to release and a stream of water shoots out!

The pressure bottle rocket works thanks to Newton’s third law of motion, which states that for every action, there is a reaction. As you pump up your rocket with air, pressure builds up inside. Eventually, this pressure pushes the rocket off of the cork and bicycle pump, and expels the water in the bottle downward — this is the action. The reaction to this downward movement of the water is the rocket’s own upwards movement, sending it high into the sky.

Go Beyond the Science Fair

KiwiCo offers awesome chemistry lab kits. Learn more about our Glow Lab, Fire Lab and Vortex Lab.

Check it Out »

2. Flying Teabag

Make a tea bag fly with heat! The flying tea bag experiment is a similar concept to a hot air balloon, but you can do it right at home.

Did your tea bag lift into the air? When the tea bag was lit, the flames started to heat the air within the teabag. The heated air rose above the cooler dense air (similar to a hot air balloon!). Once the teabag was burned, we were left with the lightweight ashes of the tea bag. The lightness of the ashes combined with the heated air caused the tea bag cylinder to lift into the air.

3. Flaming Torch

Create a whirling fire torch of your own. The flames spin upwards into a vortex from the rising heat and wind. Follow along to safely create a whirling fire torch yourself!

Stand back and watch your fire form a helix. Experiment with the spinning speeds to see how it affects the shape of the flaming tornado! The flame will last a few seconds and eventually die out as the paper towel burns. Exercise all caution while the flames are live. The beaker may be very hot so use tongs to keep your fingers safe!

4. Electromagnet

Give this experiment a try, and see how many paper clips you can pick up with your electromagnet!

Unlike the magnets that are used on refrigerators, electromagnets are magnets can be turned on and off depending on the flow of electricity. The electricity that flows through the wire allows the molecules on the in the nail to attract to certain things.

5. Rubber Band Racer

Using simple household materials and tools, it’s super easy to create a rubber band powered racer and experiment with wheels, rubber bands, and different surfaces to see how fast your racers can go!

To wind up your car, carefully turn the large wheels of the car so that the rubber band winds around the back axle. Let go and watch your car spin off!

Continue experimenting with your car and try different size and length rubber bands. What combination works the best?

For more amazing science fair projects, be sure to check out:

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Explore 14 Different Experiments with KiwiCo’s Chemistry Sets

Kids are fascinated with chemical reactions. But learning about combustion, bioluminescence and other reactions takes a lot of work. You need both a knowledge of chemistry and the supplies to conduct experiments.

That’s where KiwiCo’s chemistry sets can help. Our chemistry sets come with all of the supplies that you need. They also provide easy-to-understand context for young scientists, so kids can learn about scientific concepts. Our chemistry set bundle includes:

  • Safety equipment, including safety goggles and gloves
  • Easy-to-follow instructions that also explain key scientific concepts. All of our chemistry sets help kids learn more about polymers, plastic, solids and liquids.
  • All the chemicals and supplies you need to conduct the experiments
  • The parts you need to create a burner, mixer, UV lamp and spiral stand

With our Glow Lab, Vortex Lab and Fire Lab, we provide everything you need to explore the wonders of chemistry.

Fire Lab Activities:

The Fire Lab helps kids learn about combustion, oxidation capillary action and other concepts. Here’s a list of activities and experiments that come with the Fire Lab:

  • Learn about Combustion Chemistry
  • Fire & Fuels Experiment
  • Fire & Oxygen Experiment
  • Flame Vacuum Experiment
  • Solid Flame Test Experiment
  • Liquid Flame Test Experiment
  • Burning Steel Experiment
  • Color Burner Experiment

You can get the Fire Lab here. 

Glow Lab Activities:

Things that glow in the dark are awesome. Understanding why things glow it the dark is awesome too! The Glow Lab helps kids understand concept such as fluorescence, phosphorescence and chemiluminescence. Here’s a list of activities and experiments that come with the Glow Lab:

  • Learn about Cold Light
  • Learn about Invisible Light
  • Fluorescein Experiment
  • Zinc Sulfide Experiment
  • Luminol Reaction Experiment

You can get the Glow Lab here.

Vortex Lab Activities:

High-speed mixing has never been so fun. The Vortex Lab helps kids learn about the science of solubility, diffusion and oxidation-reduction. Here’s a list of activities that come with the set:

  • Build the Mixing Machine
  • Motion & Kinetics Experiment
  • Heat & Kinetics Experiment
  • Iodine Clock Reaction
  • Blue Bottle Reaction
  • DIY Oil & Water Experiment

You can get the set here.

Interested in all three sets? Check out our Chemistry (3-Pack) to save on the Vortex Lab, Fire Lab and Glow Lab. Get it here.

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Introducing our first Kindness Crate in partnership with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation

I’ll start with a personal confession: one of my (many) struggles as a parent is how to involve my kids more in community service and raise their awareness of causes and issues in the world around them. From talking to friends in our community and all the other parents on our team, I know I’m not alone. We all want to raise our kids to be kind, concerned and empathetic citizens – but the actual execution of getting involved is so daunting! How do I find a cause that they would understand and find relevant, a volunteer activity that’s appropriate (and welcoming) for kids, and fit it into our busy schedules??

With this in mind, our team has been talking for a long time about developing what we are calling the “Kindness Crate” – something that would:

  • Introduce kids to a cause & educate them about it (in a kid-friendly way)
  • Include a hands-on activity to connect kids to the cause (because, as you know, we believe a fully immersive experience is the best way to learn anything!)
  • Promote empathy and provide a way for kids to actually practice kindness, give back and get involved

So… I am really excited to announce the launch of the first KiwiCo Kindness Crate: Lemonade Stand –  in partnership with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. ALSF is a national non-profit started by four-year-old Alex Scott in 2000 and is dedicated to raising funds for research into new treatments and cures for all children battling cancer.

The activities and information included in this crate will help kids learn more about the work that scientists are doing to find better medicines and cures for cancer — and how ALSF – and kids just like them – help to support and advance that work. Also included are all the materials and instructions to build and run their own lemonade stand (including a “working” cash register and an adorable chalkboard sign for marketing purposes :)) to raise money for the cause (or any other cause that is important to them, really.)  And as an added educational bonus, the crate includes some fun math games the kids can play with money; we provide KiwiCo currency – if they want the real deal, they might have to do the lemonade stand first! Finally, we are including a return envelope so kids can easily send their donations back to ALSF – and KiwiCo will be donating 25% of all sales of this crate to the organization too!

We hope to inspire kids to become more aware of issues in the world around them – not in a way to make them feel sad or guilty about their own fortune in comparison, but in order to encourage their empathy for others … and to see themselves as agents of change and the creative problem solvers of tomorrow. Because, one thing is for sure, there will still be plenty of problems left for them to solve!

We’d love to see any photos of your kids and their lemonade stands in action at #kiwicocares. And if you have tips on how you get involved in community service activities or issues with your kids, please share – great parenting hacks are always welcome!

All the best,

Sandra