BabbaCo, one of my blog sponsors, sent us a Babba Box to review recently. The box was full of activities to do and make with kids, including these papier mache moon nightlights. We veered from the written instructions a bit (directions are just a suggestion, right?) and the kids had lots of fun making and then admiring their nightlights.
Here's the Babba Box as it arrived.
The kids dived right in to explore the contents.
The theme of this box was stars and moon and it included a picture book about stars, a pair of binoculars for moon viewing, a constellation activity with solar paper and star stickers, and a kit for making moon nightlights.
The girls spent a good long time looking at everything through the binoculars...
We tried out everything, but I'll focus on the moon nightlights because we had the most fun with them and because you probably don't want a blog post a mile long (must learn to take fewer pictures, must learn to take few pictures...).
The moon kit came with the materials to make a papier mache moon nightlight, including two lime green BabbaCo balloons, two little glue bottles, two disposable bowls, and some natural-colored paper (a bit lighter than newsprint but heavier than tissue paper).
Maia blew up the balloons and propped them up in the bowls provided. Both kids tore the tissue paper into pieces. They also squeezed the glue into bowls, added water, and whisked it to create the glue-only papier mache paste (which worked great, by the way).
One thing that I think BabbaCo could improve on is their activity instructions. I'm not an instructions person in the first place (I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never read my camera manual, phone manual, or computer manual), so may not be the best judge, but felt like the layout and text size made the instructions a tad confusing.
On the plus side, they include tips like, "Let your child be carefree about tearing paper—an important motor skill!"
Maia's done a lot of papier mache projects, but this was only the second for Daphne (and I doubt she remembers the first).
She was very into it.
Okay, here's where we starting veering off from the instructions provided. There wasn't enough of the natural-colored paper (or glue) for two moon nightlights. The Babba Box is really meant for one kid, although this was the only activity where we came up a little short. We had plenty of glue in the house, but no newsprint or natural-colored tissue paper.
But! We had plenty of colored tissue paper!
So the girls got creative and continued their nightlights with red and pink tissue paper for Daphne and green for Maia.
Their "moons" turned Christmas-y.
Our little LED light didn't work so we used a string of white Christmas lights inside our nightlights instead. We all LOVED them!
I can't say they resemble moons, what with creative additions and all, but the nightlights are beautiful and the girls were mesmerized by them!
Babba Box Info
Babba Box is a monthly subscription-based box of activities for kids ages 3-6 (give or take). Each box is theme based (ours was the stars and moon) with all the materials and information for 2-3 projects included.
If you'd like to try it out, you can subscribe to receive a box in the mail monthly. Or you can give a gift of 1 or 3 months of Babba Boxes.
The price is $29.99 per month and Artful Parent readers can use the code ART20Off to receive 20% off their first box.
