Unboxing the November BuriBox

Last month, I blogged about the first ever BuriBox, the October version.  Ziggy and I have been happily using it ever since. So, you can imagine how excited we were for the November box to arrive. A few days ago, it finally did!

Like last month, we got the Toddler Box again, because Ziggy’s four years old. This time though, it came with a brown outer box (the one on the left on the photo above). The first one didn’t have that. I like that they now have this outer box because I feel that it protects the BuriBox from getting crumpled during delivery.

This month’s Toddler BuriBox is designed to help the child discover the people and the objects in his or her surroundings. It also teaches the child how to understand and express his or her emotions.

The Parent’s Guide included in the box explains to the parents how important it is to teach children about emotions. They say that “teaching your child about his or her feelings is one of the most important life skills you can impart to your child. Children who understand their feelings are less likely to throw tantrums or exhibit behavior problems. ” I definitely agree.

So, here’s what you can find inside! As usual, there is a mix of books, activity sheets and art materials all in theme.

Here are the four books included.

The books included are as follows:

• Masaya Ako – increases awareness about one’s feelings, helps the child label the feeling and express them clearly
• The World Around Me (Green) – helps the child make sense of the things around him, helps in building schema about different things as well as his vocabulary
• Figure This Out 2 – develops the child’s visual perception skills
• Magkulay Tayo 2 – helps the child make sense of the things around him, helps in building schema about different things as well as his vocabulary

The first 3 books are bilingual, using both Filipino and English. So far, we’ve only used Masaya Ako during the past few days. But based on our experience with the October BuriBox, I’m sure we will love all four books. I credit them for adding more Filipino words to Ziggy’s vocabulary.

Below are the activity sheets. They’re all bilingual too.

There are 6 activities in this box. They are as follows:

• Face Puzzle – shows that different feelings can be represented by different facial expressions, shows that we can also use our body or face to show different feelings
• Masayang Mukha, Malungkot na Mukha – helps the child become aware of his feelings, helps the child label his feelings and communicate them better
• Mga Gamit sa Aking Bahay – increases one’s vocabulary about the things around him
• Mga Gamit sa Aking Eskuwelahan – increases one’s vocabulary about the things in his school
• Popsicle Stick Faces (2 sheets) – helps the child become aware of his feelings, helps the child label his feelings and communicate them better
• The World Around Me Puzzle – develops fine motor skills (in picking up and handling puzzle pieces), enhances visual spacial awareness as well as problem-solving skills, develops hand-and-eye coordination which is an important skill for writing, increases a child’s attention span

So far, we’ve only been able to do two of these activities, the Face Puzzle and the Popsicle Stick Faces.

It was Ziggy’s first time to handle popsicle sticks for arts and crafts so he was really excited to use them. Here are the finished products.

I love how the books and activity sheets work together. We did this activity after reading the book, Masaya Ako. So, making these popsicle stick faces helps reinforce the learnings from the book about feelings. While Ziggy is already aware of the different types of feelings, he didn’t know what they are called in Filipino. Now, with the BuriBox, he’s learning those too.

Ziggy also loves puzzles so this was the second activity we tried.

Ziggy is usually very good with puzzles. In fact, he finishes puzzles pretty fast. However, with these I noticed that he struggled a bit when matching the top part of the face to the lower part. This just goes to show that he still has much to learn about facial expressions.

In the end, he was able to figure out everything though. I know he’ll get better at it in time.

The box also contains art materials that you can use for the activities.

I love that the BuriBox contains everything you will need to teach the lessons. No need to buy any more materials from the bookstore!

If we were happy with the October BuriBox, we are even more satisfied with this one. It’s partly because the lessons are very appropriate for our son, who’s still in the process of learning how to express his emotions properly. Being only 4 years old, he acts out sometimes out of frustration and we know that’s only because he doesn’t know yet how to express what he’s feeling. With this month’s BuriBox, I am hoping we can teach him how to make sense of it all.

Anyway, I can’t wait to receive next month’s box already! To those of you from the provinces who were not able to subscribe before when shipping was only limited to Metro Manila, you’d be happy to know that BuriBox can now ship nationwide. Yay! Payment is still limited to Paypal though, so get yourself an account if you don’t already have one.

The BuriBox sells for Php 799.00 only and you can have a choice between the Toddler (3 – 5 years old) and the Young Reader (6-8 years old) BuriBox. To learn more, do visit the BuriBox website.