Mummy I’m bored. Says the child surrounded by toys and distractions. How many times do you hear this? Especially over the summer holidays! I’m always on the lookout for different activities that I can have on hand for these moments, over the half term we tested out a couple of the sets on offer from Planet JUNKO and we are both super impressed. To explain briefly you are taking junk modelling to extremes and really notching those creations up a gear.
Epic Cereal Box Creations
JUNKO Epic Cereal Box creations is a beautifully bright and colourful book filled with step by step guides, useful templates and tools and free flowing ideas of different things you can make from a cereal box.
It is a lovely book. Tactile, easy to use and aimed fully at kids. Starting from the first page that they get to add their name to and claim as their own. The projects and challenges start off easily and move up to more complex creations, all along keeping a real sense of fun.
From high flyings darts, to cute or creepy spiders (take your pick as you make it), astronaut helmets and unicorns there is something for everyone.
That sounds great enough as it is doesn’t it, but I’ve kept one little secret from you. The JUNKO magic 3D corners. All of a sudden the possibilities are endless. No wasteful sellotape use. No glue being smeared over everything. Just these clever little, bright green, plastic corners that grasp any card the approximate thickness of a flattened out cereal box perfectly.
These corners are what allow your models to take on life!
L loves it! He worked his way through a couple of the easier projects in the book and then decided he was going to make a giraffe, obviously. I helped him cut the shape for the face but everything else was all him. With a pair of scissors, a bit of bending and folding and some pens for decoration we soon, and by soon I mean two days later because by this point half term was over and school kept getting in the way, we had ourselves a lovely giraffe.
Now it can’t stand up, it’s definitely top heavy and it needs a bit more colour added to it, but it is a wonderful creation, direct from the busy mind of a 7 year old. Already he’s working out what went well and what didn’t, thinking of ways to improve the design and make a larger more stable beast next time. We’ve also got summer holiday plans for the astronaut helmet and a rocket ship!
Best bit, when everything is done and we’re ready to move onto the next thing I can simply remove the corners, store them back in the little box attached to the book and recycle the cereal box as there’s no tape involved. All the JUNKO parts are made out of recycled plastic too, which is great to hear.
JUNKO Epic Cereal Box Creations is available from Amazon at £14.99
JUNKO Zoomer! Kit (Master Kit)
The JUNKO Zoomer! Kit is a tube filled with everything you need to make your junk models move! Zoomer is right, you will be able to create your very own pull back and go vehicles from the junk you find in the house.
All the parts you need come in the box, wheels, grips, magnets, elastic bands and the amazing 3D Magic Corners, the Zoomer! Kit just takes it up a notch. A bit more complicated than the Epic Cereal Box Creations but using the same concept it’s great next step. These builds might need the odd bit of adult input here and there and you also might need a bit of sellotape as well, but only for the odd bit here and there. Again all the JUNKO parts are made from recycled plastic and the wheels even glow in the dark!
L made himself a tank and whilst I still think he could add a bit more too it, he is very happy with his finished project and it’s been zooming round the house for a couple of weeks now. He has plans to add a few more decorations to it but that hasn’t happened yet, give it one more rainy weekend though and I bet it will be what he asks to do.
The Zoomer! Kit allows you to build a wheeled base that will fit onto smaller boxes, juice cartons or milk bottles. You can adapt the base to make it fit different sized containers and it clips on and off the container using magnets. Now if you are using something thins, you can place the magnets inside and will attract through the base layer, but the box we used was a bit to thick so we had to tape the magnets onto it for the base to clip onto.
The rear wheels have a hook on them and the side panels are designed for you to feed an elastic band through, this band then hooks onto the wheel and as you pull back it winds round and round the wheel, getting tighter and tighter until you let go and then off it goes! So much fun and so many science lessons he doesn’t even realise he’s learning.
The base is just your starting point, you can then use your 3D Magic Corners, special J-FIX clips and magnets to add the decor to your vehicle. Spoilers and wheel arches. Eyes and crazy hair. Cabs and windscreens. Some of the special clips even work with those little plastic building bricks you might have kicking about at home, you know the ones I mean, that sometimes start with L. The possibilities are endless. Once your done, just pop all the JUNKO parts back in the tube and store until next time you’re ready to create something marvelous.
The instructions are clear and easy to follow and there’s plenty of inspiration, even a fun comic to go with it all. Everything you need to keep young minds active and engaged and most importantly having fun!
JUNKO Zoomer! Kit is available from Amazon at £36.99
More from JUNKO
There are plenty more kits available from JUNKO so the fun doesn’t have to stop. You can top up on the Magic Corners or buy an add on kit that will allow your models to swim!
As well as more products there’s also lots of online inspiration, how to videos, downloads for you to print and colour in so you can add characters to your creations and you can find out more about how JUNKO came to be.
We love our JUNKO Kits. They have been well thought out from the book design and kid friendly instructions, to the fact that everything has its own storage, the solid tube from the Zoomer! Kit will hold everything safe and the little box attached to the side of the Epic Cereal Box Creations book.
The fact the JUNKO parts are sturdy and designed to be reused again and again really appeals to me, plus I love that they have used recycled materials to make them.
JUNKO is the ultimate boredom buster and perfect to have in the house ready for the summer holidays.
Disclosure – we were gifted our products. All thoughts, opinions and images are my own.
Well this looks super fun I think its great to get kids being more creative and away from their screens for a little while!
It’s brilliant, we’ve had a lot of fun with it and you can use it again and again