Summer came to a quick close almost a month ago for us and we are already back to school. Wow, that was a fast summer and we crammed as much fun in as we could. Now that school is back in session, I still want the kids to have some fun in the evenings, between homework and all of our other activities. One thing they always love is getting mail. B gets the mail everyday after school and the first question is "Did I get anything?". Most days it is just unfun stuff like bills and junk mail, but on special occasions, we get fun surprises.

 A Monthly Box of Adventure!

Founded on 3 simple principles-1) Kids are brilliant, 2) Curiosity fuels success, and 3) Everyone loves getting a surprise in the mail, Surprise Ride is a monthly, kid friendly, activity kit, delivered right to your home. Surprise Ride was created by two sisters, Donna and Rosy, who had struggled to find unique gifts for their nephews. The gifts they were searching for needed to add value to the boys' lives, foster creativity, and empower them with experiences. They decided to create their own way to reach out to kids and help them expand their horizons.

Surprise Ride offers a monthly themed kit with hands on learning and fun in one box, delivered to your mailbox. Each box will be full of materials to do fun and exciting activities, while exploring something new in our world.  Surprise Ride has worked with experts to plan the highest quality activities, they have been kids tested, and each box is a complete surprise until it arrives at your door.  With a variety of subscription options (1 month, 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month), each box includes a "Checked Bag"-all of the supplies needed to complete the projects for the monthly theme, "Carry Ons"-a book, a snack, or other fun surprises to go along with the ride, and "Travel Guide"-the famous Surprise Ride booklet with lessons on the theme, interesting facts, and ways to continue exploring the theme. The Surprise Ride box is geared for children 6-11, but can be fun for kids of other ages too.

I worked with Surprise Ride, who offered to send us a one month themed box to let the kids play with and explore. It was shipped to B, they like to address it to the child so they feel extra special. I love this! I know my kids love seeing their name on something from the mailbox. I couldn't wait to check out this company, who has even been featured on Shark Tank.

Our Surprise Ride box is here!

One kiddo is super excited to see what came for him.

The first thing we came across is the Surprise Ride Guide. This Guide gave us all the basic information for our Theme--PowWow, American Indians. Our essentials would be designing a dream catcher and creating a tribal drum. Our extras would include a dance rattle, animal slide whistle, worry stone, North American Indian activity book, and a Pop'd Kerns snack. On the back side were all of Surprise Ride's social media links.

The Surprise Ride July Themed PowWow box includes all of this:

Once everything had been taken out of the box, we found our PowWow guide. This "Travel Guide" gave us a lot of neat facts about the American Indians and ideas to use throughout our exploration of the box.  

 

 

Did you know that the American Indians invented Lacrosse? It was originally known as stickball and is a very popular sport played all over the US today.

Next we browsed the instruction sheets for our two design and create projects. Number one was a dream catcher, it listed the supplies that were included and step by step instructions to complete it.

We also found the supply bag for creating our dream catcher.

On the opposite side was information about creating a tribal drum, again with supply list and step by step instructions. It also included information on what drums are used for in the American Indian culture.

Drum making supplies

 

We also found a worry stone

A Pop'd Kerns snack

A dance rattle

An animal slide whistle

A North American Indian activity book

Everything that was listed was included and looked really neat to explore. One day after school we let B get started.

His first choice was trying out the Pop'd Kerns snack, "A corn crunch like no other", in original flavor. These kernels of corn are all natural and gluten free and offer just the right amount of crunch. B had a few handfuls and I had a small sample too. Daddy even tried some when he came home. They were very unique in both texture and flavor, we all thought they were decent and different. 

 

 

 

 Then we had a small performance with our new creation.

 Showing off the worry stone, ours represents a trickster-how perfect for my silly boy!

S needed to get in on some action too, she found the dance rattle and animal whistle and put on a show of her own.

 

Big brother also let her do some of the activities in the North American Indian book. She had fun doing the word search all on her own.

 

She also did the same/different activity.

The last part of the Surprise Ride box was creating a dream catcher. B decided that since he had gotten to make the drum, S could make the dream catcher.

 

 

All done with our dream catcher, ready to hang over S's bed.