Nicola Harvey and her family enjoy the Lucky Gecko Midwinter activity box, one of a new series of holiday boxes
When I first head about the activity boxes available from Lucky Gecko, I imaginged it to be a subscription craft kit, which would have been lovely. Once I’d opened it, I realised this was something much more and with a huge amount of thought and consideration behind it.
The latest treat from Lucky Gecko is their Midwinter box, which unlike the usual Lucky Gecko boxes, which come in three types, Wisdom, Curiosity and Imagination, was a mixture of activities from all three categories.
The first thing I noticed when we unpacked the box was just what good quality the contents are. My family are veterans of all sorts of craft kits, and often the materials are disappointing in what results they achieve. The paints for the crafty bit of the Lucky Gecko kit are a quality brand and will be useful even when we’ve completed the suggested activities. There is also a proper game – in that it will last beyond the box too.
My husband and I recognised it as what used to be called Perfection when we were younger, but even with a different name, it’s great fun and involves putting lots of different shapes into their slots before the timer runs out. Think shape-sorter toy with tiny shapes and against the clock. Hugely addictive and competitive, and that’s even before we let the children have a go!
Even if we had no book to guide us and suggest activities, we’d have had a lot of fun with the penguin racers, magic growing tree and magic snow. But with the encouragement of the 30 page activity guide, the science behind at least some of them is explained and there are also quizzes, Christmas and Winter facts, and suggestions for creative writing challenges. The challenges are made more attractive by the encouragement of the Lucky Gecko team, throughout the booklet, to share photos of what the children have done, written and made with them. If we decide to go for more boxes, this is a relationship I can see developing well. It felt a bit like being encouraged to write into Blue Peter.
All in all, this is a fantastic, fun, educational pack that would be ideal for 8-12 year olds as suggested, but equally would have something to interest younger, older…and much older (!) kids alike. At £30+, it isn’t cheap, but it is really good value, considering the quality, amount and thoughtfulness of the contents.
Highly recommend. We’ll be looking out for future boxes.