Fun Science Kits to Let Knowledge Grow This Easter
We spent our Easter break visiting friends, family and having time away from technology (hurrah!) If you are looking for ideas on how to keep the kids entertained just check out the range that Thames & Kosmos have to offer.
With great activities to keep young minds busy and letting their knowledge grow with MBE – a series of exciting science kits from Thames & Kosmos. Priced at just £8.99 each, the kits are designed to introduce various topics with interesting experiments and fun facts.
Although Jake is achieving really well in school, when it comes to home he doesn’t express any interest in wanting to ‘learn more’ and chooses to read/watch TV/interact on devices leaving ‘learning’ pretty much within the school grounds.
When we received this Thames and Kosmos sets to review, he really couldn’t wait. He does enjoy Science and Mathematics and these are his strongest subjects, so within our Easter break we couldn’t wait to try out the STEM LABZ range by Thames and Kosmos.
Their sets are hands-on which kids will love. Their collection of kits covering minerals, planets, crystals, pre-historic crustaceans and more. There’s even a little bit of magic thrown in for good measure! Greatly priced and delivering genuine learn-while-they-play experiences.
The Thames & Kosmos Range
Read a bit more about the range below.
Amazing Minerals – excavate minerals like a real geologist! There are five different gemstones to hidden in the soft plaster material, with factual information on each in the colourful instructions.
Bouncing Planets – space fans will love making their own bouncy-ball planets invarious colours. Create a coloured mixture, pour it into a spherical mould and dip it in water to solidify, and voila! A new awesome bouncing planet is formed.
Crystal Geode– this kit includes all the ingredients and instructions needed to grow your own crystals in a self-cast plaster mould, and transforms them into beautiful shiny crystal geode forms, creating a unique and mysterious spherical rock formation.
Crystal Growing – from white crystal salt and water, this pack shows children how easy it is to create their own fascinating crystals. Enclosed dye adds colour to each creation and there’s also a fun booklet to explain what crystals actually are and how their various forms develop.
Prehistoric Sea Dogs – an unusual ‘pet’ for Easter, this experiment kit lets kids breed their own prehistoric crustacean. Place prehistoric eggs into salty water and watch the larvae hatch. Using the food included, keep them well fed, and watch the hatchlings grow into shrimps.
Molecule Beads – As if by magic, turn liquids into slimy giant molecules! Whether it’s balls, snakes or jellyfish, this kit lets children form and study all kinds of slimy giant molecules. A must for any budding slime scientist!
Monster Putty – make playful monsters or funky aliens with this amazing ‘Intelligent putty’. The kit includes plastic parts to help with effects, but watch in amazement as the putty changes within a few minutes due to its special characteristics.
Magic Tricks – a slight side-step from science, this ‘bag’ of tricks will teach children how to perform magic in no time. Each pack includes a collection of magic ingredients and colourful step-by-step instructions, to enable children to put on their own performance.
Don’t they all sound and look fantastic. We couldn’t wait to really get stuck into learning more.
We have been sent the Amazing Minerals and Prehistoric Sea Dogs to try out, and wow, we have had super fun!
Thames and Kosmos – Amazing Minerals
First we started with Amazing Minerals, as this was Jake’s first choice.
Included within was:-
A block of soft plaster material
2x Tools
Magnifying Glass
Instructions
What we needed to do was excavate the minerals like a real geologist. Within there are 3 different gem stones.
Lets get started
It is best by adding a cloth or old newspaper across the surface area to protect. All we needed to get started was some water, a pen and ruler.
Jake needed to draw lines on his excavation surface so this be a guideline on where we were to excavate, square by square.
Jake drew the lines across and then down to make squares. Next I added tap water on to the excavation point this would then make the plaster a softer form to allow Jake to excavate.
Square by square he was checking each scrape for any signs of hidden gems!
We finally hit our first hidden gem, and then adding more water to safely remove.
Even Grace took it upon herself to re check the plaster Jake has removed, clearly doing a thorough job of his work making sure he has not missed anything.
They searched through the whole plaster block until it was fully demolished and 3 hidden gems were revealed.
Check out these amazing minerals, they are beautiful. Unsure what to do with them now they have been excavated. Jake chose to place them into his fish tank. So we gave them a good clean and placed them in with his new fish.
Thames and Kosmos – Prehistoric Sea Dogs
Next we tried out Prehistoric Sea Dogs, this was the one that I was most excited to try out.
Everything in this kit is supplied for what we needed to start we just needed cooled boiled water, which can be by the pan or kettle making our water sterile for our sea dogs.
Once the water was at room temperature we added 250ml of the salt and stirred until dissolved.
We then got the bag of eggs and added 4 spatula tip’s worth of eggs into the salty water.
Gave them a stir and covered the bowl to protect from dust.
It is then advised to wait 1-2 days before we see any hatching.
Day 4, orange mist has appeared within the water,
I first started to see movement 5 days later, this might be due to the fact I wasn’t looking closely enough as they are very hard to see with the naked eye once hatched. (plus to the fact Grace was using glitter a couple of days after and ended up blowing glitter into the bowl) a lid with air hole would suit this project well.
Using my phone camera I was able to see them clearly.
They’ve hatched just check out this video of our sea dogs, we are very happy to see this has worked because I was starting to have doubts once Grace blew some glitter in!
There is supplied food, after 3 days of hatching add a sesame seed amount size of food into the bowl and repeat every two weeks.
It is normal for the number of larva to decrease rapidly as more than 90% die before they grow up, and we sure have alot of them in that tub.
I will update with more information once we see more change!
Our Thoughts
We have had great fun over the Easter holiday’s with these sets and I would really recommend them.
The Thames and Kosmos sets are suitable for ages 8+, each fun kit is priced £8.99 and are available from Thames and Kosmos website.
Mummy H, Jake & Grace
GIVEAWAY
Thames and Kosmos have kindly offered one of their Amazing Minerals for us to giveaway. If you would like a chance to win, just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway form below.
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