Little Passports' summer camp in a box is full of fun STEM activities for parents and their kids, and my family enjoyed doing them together

• Summer camp is taking on creative new forms this year, and virtual exploration is all the rage.
• Little Passports' Camp in a Box gets little-to-big kids elbow-deep in STEM projects, and my kids enjoyed the activities, even though we did not follow the included schedule.
• I found that the kids needed lots of parental help with the projects, and these activities are best done by both parent and child together.
• The summer camp kits are expensive at $125 for the World Edition and $150 for the Science Junior kit, but both are well worth the price.

It's always worthwhile to try to stave off the summer slide, a phenomenon in which children can lose up to 20% of what they learned during the school year over their summer break. This can also create a cascading effect of academic loss throughout their education.

There are many ways to avoid some of this deficit with activities at home like unstructured reading and outdoor play. For parents who are in a position to afford it, I found that Little Passports' Summer Camp in a Box offers inspired, enrichment-heavy projects for young school-age kids.

My family received editorial review samples of the Science Junior and World Edition boxes to test, and my kids enjoyed the activities.

Design and specs

When the two boxes from Little Passports arrived, I was slightly overwhelmed. Each was stuffed full with six individually packaged activities, plus a one-day sample schedule for guidance. Spoiler alert: We did not follow the schedule. Pulling everything out to survey the components made things a little easier for me and my kids to process.

Science Junior encourages learning about subjects like chimpanzees and volcanoes and is geared toward 5-to-8-year-old kids. World Edition, meant for 6-to-10-year-old kids, focuses on geography, travel, and culture.

Each package includes reading materials, souvenirs, and a kit with everything you'll need for a hands-on project. Explorers Sam and Sofia are featured throughout each box, in comics and letters. They are frequently joined by scientists and friends like Ruby, Mikey, and Mani who highlight key themes and terms to break down each subject for kids to understand.

Additionally, the Science Junior box comes with a backpack and the World Edition includes a small suitcase, both of which can be easily stuffed with the fruits of their STEM labor and toted around.

What it's like to use

Since my big kid, Lyla, just turned 5, I asked another mom to try these kits out with her child, Jay, who is almost 7. According to his mom, Jay is preternaturally math-and-science-oriented, and they were both pleased with the literacy and social studies activities from the World Edition box.

While Lyla is very creative, she shows a half-hearted interest in STEM projects. Incorporating these crafts designed to spark curiosity felt full of potential though.

The Science Junior box presented a few challenges. Constructing a card stock Weddell Seal with a motorized fish is not an easy undertaking when your child is just not interested. The instructions were thorough, but the number of steps felt exhausting.

Building a zither for the Sound and Music package was smoother but still very labor-intensive, but for this package, Lyla was more interested in exploring short tasks like the fill-in-the-blank. All that said, the variety of subjects covered in each box created lots of fun and the projects sparked some fascinating conversations about how we use and store energy and the role of music across different cultures.

The World Edition featured a number of critical-thinking exercises where Jay could explore different environments and cultures, as well as consider his own place in the world via his own souvenir passport. Complementary exercises, like spelling and vocabulary tasks, helped bolster literacy skills. Jay's favorite souvenir was the large world map that he used for Little Passports activities like placing a thumbtack sticker on the places he had "been." Later, his mom told me, he also used it to show her other places he'd like to learn about in the future.

A note about the camp schedule: I would love to be the type of person who can be handed an adventurous new schedule, take my kids' hands, and jump in. That's just not my, or Jay's mom's, reality. For better or worse, the past few months have helped reveal our respective family's natural daily routines, and that's working for us. Instead, we could dole out activities on rainy days — a classic summer-camp move — that were creative and educational.

What makes it stand out

Another great additional feature is the bonus digital content that you can access. It is chock-full of how-to videos, Science Walk prompts like counting bugs, and printable sheets for DIY drawings and jokes.

Also, Little Passports is founded and run by women. As a lady in science myself, I appreciate their contribution to the representation and empowerment of women in business and STEM.

The cons

We weren't able to leave Lyla or Jay to do these projects on their own, though Jay could have a little more independence because he can read above his age. Because his mom and I both have other, smaller, children at home — with other, smaller, attention spans — devoting time to lengthy projects became challenging.

Summer slide is a significantly larger issue for low-income students, and the price tag on these boxes likely makes them unattainable on a limited budget. Making these kinds of tools available to all students who want them, not just who can afford them, is something we'd like to see.

The bottom line

Little Passports Camp in a Box is a great resource for encouraging your kids' natural curiosity about science, with some parental guidance. Each package was loaded with materials and fun activities. The schedule was a nice thought, but ultimately it worked out better for us to complete each project in a way that filled the gaps in our family's routine.

Pros: Engaging, educational, comes with everything you need for each project

Cons: Somewhat cost-prohibitive, even with the bonus material