iNbox – It’s bonding time + Giveaway!!

Does your kid like to receive mails?
How about receiving a fun activity box every month? Add in the suspense of what’s inside, and I bet this is already the first step to lots of fun!

XX and YH received a set of iNbox each for the month of May and they were extremely excited on what could be inside the box! What is iNbox? It is a monthly educational subscription box developed by early childhood development experts delivered to you fresh every month! That means, every month your child can look forward to a mailbox of surprise activities to play. There are about 4-5 activities inside the box that are related to a theme in that month. Each iNbox contains experiential activities for your child to:

iNbox is also designed to fulfill at least 12 children developmental benchmarks out of the following list:

Let’s take a look at what the May iNbox looks like. This month’s theme is “I Love My Vegetables“. What a timely theme this is! I am trying to encourage my kids to learn about the nutrition of vegetables and try out different kinds of greens!

Activity 1 – My Garden
My kids love this activity and which kid doesn’t? They read the simple instructions and did everything on their own. Basically, they have to plant the seeds and water the plant everyday and see it grow!

My XX and YH indeed remembered to water the little pots everyday and looked forward to seeing them grow!

Activity 2 – My vegetable family
The kids like this activity because they get to play with colourful sand 🙂 The sand is not sticky to the fingers and is easily cleaned off. We make a photo frame out of the cute vegetable cardboard. However, one thing that we found difficulty with was the sticking of the colour sand onto the cardboard. This certainly requires adult’s help and at one point in time, YH was quite frustrated that the colour sand would not stay. I used this opportunity to show him patience and we did complete it in the end 🙂

Activity 3 – Chew and Munch
I love this activity! This is a food reward chart that encourages your child to eat vegetables by rewarding star stickers. The food chart is categorized into 1-star, 2-star, 3-star tier of rewards depending on the nutritional value of the vegetables. It also encourages kids to drink water with a 1-star reward for 2 cups of water. There is no doubt about the kids getting all excited and referring to the chart every meal to check on how many stars are rewarded for that meal’s vegetables. At the end of each week, depending on how many stars your child gets, he/she will be rewarded with a small present. What a clever way of encouraging kids to eat the greens!

Activity 4 – Little Chef
I find this game very cleverly designed! It actually encourages teamwork rather than the usual competitive game to determine the winner. This is a memory game where you need to overturn all the vegetable cards and burnt out cards. The idea is to find all the matching ingredient cards and put them in the “cooking pot” before the fire is burnt out by the “burnt out” cards. So, XX and YH were trying to help each other remember where the matching ingredient cards were and were careful to avoid choosing the burnt out cards. At the end of it all, it is either everyone wins or everyone loses.

Activity 5 – Story telling: Where is my carrot?
With each iNbox, includes a story book related to the month’s theme. The story teaches children on what are needed for vegetables to grow well using an interesting story line. It also teaches Science knowledge including the carrot being a root that grows underground. We like the captivating illustration too.

5 reasons why I think iNbox is cool:
1) The activities are cleverly designed and suit each month’s theme perfectly. I can make use of the month’s theme and teach my kids on everything related to vegetables and get them to like eating greens in an engaging way.
2) It provides many family bonding opportunities as it requires parents to work on the activities together with their kids. The games and activities are good on a rainy day or on weekday nights when I usually have a free-play time with my kids.
3) These hands-on activities are certainly better than watching TV or playing app games. And the story-telling activity is one of our favourite even with my school-going kids. They simply love to have their mummy read to them before they sleep.
4) The materials are safe and non-toxic and of high quality. With each pack of activity, there is no need to supplement with your own materials as every material that is needed is included. There is even a green non-stick mat to lay on the floor or table for the activities that makes cleaning a breeze.
5) The subscription rate is reasonable at $25.80 per month with 12 months subscription. That works out to be about $5 per activity that in my opinion is really worth going for it. Visit their website for the subscription plans.

GIVEAWAY ALERT!!!

After reading and seeing what’s inside the iNbox, are you tempted to have a trial? I have 2 iNbox to give away to Kids “R” Simple readers! No robotic Rafflecopter this time round. Just follow these simple steps and you could be the lucky one!

1) Like Kids R Simple facebook page (if you have not)
2) Like iNbox facebook page
3) Like and share this post on facebook
4) Leave a comment on this post on facebook (leaving a comment again in this blog post would be a bonus) stating why you want to win this subscription box:
“I want to win iNBox because……………..”
* Remember to click public sharing when you like and share this facebook post as this will qualify you for the giveaway 🙂
Giveaway ends 16 June 2014.

Alternatively, if you aren’t the lucky one, I have a cool $10 off 3 months subscription for all Kids “R” Simple readers! That works out to be only $18 per month! Coupon Code is “inbox$10off”. Promotion ends 30 June.

Let me know if you enjoy the iNbox if you decided to subscribe to it!

Disclaimer: I received 2 iNbox for the month of May for the purpose of this review from Smart Alley. They are kind folks who believe my 2 elder kids should each have one iNbox to enjoy! The last thing I want is to have my kids fight over the iNbox. The above review is purely my own truthful opinions.