Art in Our Homeschool: A Review of Tiger Crystal Art Card Kit

 

I received a COMPLIMENTARY copy of this Card Kit from Timberdoodle in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

Do you have one of those subjects in your homeschool that sometimes gets neglected? For us, it is often art. While our children love arts and crafts, I often save those projects for another day because we run out of time, need to gather materials, etc. Knowing how important the arts are to developing various skills, I was very pleased to review the Tiger Crystal Art Card Kit from Timberdoodle with our two children. The Kit is included in the 2022 Fourth-Grade Curriculum Kit from Timberdoodle which I think is a perfect fit. 

What is the Tiger Crystal Art Card Kit? 

This self-contained art kit includes all the components one needs to create a beautiful work of art. In our case, the card kit depicted a tiger. The company does have other kits available including a lion, kittens, owl, horse, and others. 

In the kit we found: 

• 1 Card 
• 1 Envelope 
• Bags of Crystals 
• Empty Plastic Resealable Bags 
• 1 Crystal Pick-Up Pen 
• Jelly Wax
• Tray 

The card is covered with a plastic piece as the card itself is sticky so you can place the crystals. The instructions are located on the inside of the kit package and written in English, German, French, and Dutch. So, in addition to incorporating art into your homeschool, you can try out your language skills by comparing the instructions. 

How Did We Use the Tiger Crystal Art Card Kit? 

When it first arrived, our daughter was very excited to get started. She loves arts and crafts so this was perfect for her. After opening it, I was apprehensive that she would be able to complete it as she only turned seven and it is included in the Fourth-Grade Curriculum Kit. It looked like it would take great concentration to complete this kit. Would our daughter and our son have the patience to work on it? 

The first day I set aside time to work on the Tiger Crystal Art Card Kit, I let our children pick which color we would complete first. We opened the appropriate bag of crystals, poured them into the tray, put the Jelly Wax near the tray, and started working. I began the process to show our children how to use the Pick Up Pen (or stylus). Our daughter quickly wanted to try it on her own. I held the plastic piece up off the card so she could apply the crystals. 

Between the three of us, we completed that first color over the course of the day. I would work on it for a little bit and then go back to work or homeschool one of our children. Our daughter would work on it for a time while her brother and I were working on spelling or language arts. Our son would then work on it after he completed his other homeschool assignments. We continued this process for several days. I even left it out so they could work on it throughout the whole day and evening. And there were quite a few nights I worked on the Tiger Crystal Art Card Kit on my own as I found it relaxing. 

How Do You Complete the Picture? 

Choose which area of the card you want to work on and then look at the letter on the card. Find the bag of crystals labelled with that letter and pour them into your tray. Use the Pick Up Pen, after dabbing it into the Jelly Wax, to pick up the crystals. The crystals are attached to the dots labelled with the letter you chose. Don't remove the entire plastic piece until you are completed to protect the sticky parts of the card. 

When you are done with a specific letter, put that in a small plastic resealable bag and label it. You may notice you missed a few spots like we did and need to go back and fill them in later. 

What Did We Think? 

At first, I was very concerned that our children would not be able to complete the project. It seemed to require great patience and hand-eye coordination. Would this work? I really thought that I would have to complete the entire card on my own but thankfully I was wrong. Our children enjoyed the process and seeing the card transform into a sparkly picture with the crystals. This simple card kit really brought art in our homeschool to life! 

What about the process? Was it easy to transfer the tiny crystals to the sticky card? Yes and no. If the crystals were the right side up, one could easily use the Pick Up Pen to transfer them if you had enough Jelly Wax on the Pen. Sometimes the crystals would fall off during the transfer but that wasn't that often. And we did have to gently shake the tray to flip the crystals over so we could pick them up the right way.  Once you get into a rhythm, it is quite easy to fill the entire card with the color you are working on at that time. 

We did notice that we had some duplicate bags of colors and one letter had two different bags of crystals. This wasn't too confusing and it did not impact our picture at all. 

I really enjoyed working on the Tiger Crystal Art Card Kit. I found it relaxing and enjoyable. While our soon-to-be fourth grade son enjoyed this homeschool art project, our daughter really liked it. So I would definitely recommend it for your daughters who love arts and crafts. If they have good dexterity and patience, then a child as young as seven might be able to complete this with a little help. 

Our daughter shared, "Though hard at first, it was actually easy once you got used to using the pen to grab the crystals and putting them on the card." She said it was a lot of fun. Our son said it was an "epic experience." 

This kit really brought art in our homeschool to life! Both our son and our daughter recommend it for your homeschool.