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Galt Toys Horrible Science Kit: Beastly Body Bits
by broxi3781
My son has been begging for Jigsaws with more pieces as most of ours only 100 - 120 pieces, so when I saw this in a charity shop - I snapped it up. I believe I paid £1 - which is very fair as the full price for this is £8.98 from Amazon. This puzzle is printed on a tick and good quality card - as I would expect from Horrible Science. ... There is no worry of the edges of the puzzle bending or fraying with normal use.
I really like jigsaw puzzles. They seem to be less popular than they once were, but there are many benefits to playing with puzzles of any kind. In fact the use of puzzles and board games is considered one of the 3 greatest things you can do for your child's education ( the other two are reading to and with your child and family days out). All puzzles teach spacial awareness, problem solving, analytical skills, maths skills, sequencing , logical thought and good old fashioned patience. Younger children will also develop motor skills and hand - eye coordination through play with puzzles. Puzzles can also be a wonderful family activity. We spend most evenings doing something together. Often it is just watching videos or playing video games, or marathon book reading sessions, but I find puzzles and games are a wonderful way for the family to spend time together and interact with each other. Puzzles encourage conversation and cooperation in a way that modern electronic entertainment simply can not match.
In addition to the benefits of puzzles in general, many puzzles also attempt to teach skills like science or geography. This puzzle, as I expect you have guessed from the title, focuses on science, in this case the human body. The artist who drew this picture has gone out of his way to be revolting - but that is exactly why children like it. The illustration depicts a mad scientist in the middle of a Frankenstein like experiment. Some consideration has been given to modesty, and our corpse is wearing knickers. Mr Body has been cut apart many times and sewn back together, or perhaps built from the parts of many bodies - as evidenced by the stitches. His entire chest cavity is opened up revealing all of his internal organs. Our scientist holds a severed hand in his own hand - perhaps ready to sew it on. The toes are missing from one foot, but a jar of toes is nearby - right next to the jar of leaches. Electrodes are attached to his head, and one is bruised and swollen half shut, but the other is open wide and the word "ERK" in a speech bubble while the mad scientist shouts in triumph "He's Alive".
The best parts of this puzzle are the circles with various organs. The liver is shown oozing bile, and the brain along with labels of each part, the lungs are wheezing, the skin is shown with a puss filled spot, an oozing sweat gland and a small bug. Boys being boys though, the organs involved in excrement got the most interest. Two hands are shown squeezing the kidneys as wee leaks from the bladder. The stomach is shown churning, and then we can see a brown liquid squelching and squeezing its way through the small intestine and finally coming out the large intestine as poo. The dog eating a pile of intestine was also very popular, as the cat looks on in disgust.
I am sure children will pick up some knowledge of body organs and functions just by looking at them as they build this puzzle. My children do have several books on this, so are pretty familiar with the ideas anyway, but this does present a fun an easy way for children to learn about the body. A nice thing about learning through puzzles is it does have components of several learning styles There is obviously visual learning involved, but I think this does involve some aspects of tactile learning as well. Puzzles also allow many children who have difficulty sitting still for a lesson to absorb much more as it is a far more active way of learning. But learning with this, or any other themed jigsaw is at it's best with an adult helping and talking as they go along , bringing in auditory learning as well as a great deal of additional information.
We have had a great many lively conversations centered around this puzzle. I would make a brief comment on each body part as we worked on that part of the puzzle, but most importantly, I answer any questions they might have. My four year old will joyfully talk you through the whole process of digestion and elimination, and I believe verbalising a topic is also an excellent way to commit the facts to memory.
This puzzle usually takes close to two hours to complete, but that is with a four year old helping, a lot of talking and silliness involved as well as breaks for snacks - a bit of poo, blood and guts isn't enough to put my sons off eating. This puzzle is recommended for ages 8+ and I feel that is a fair assessment of age range if the child will be doing this alone. My oldest is 7 and I think he would have had some difficulty doing this alone and he never does sit down and do these puzzles alone yet. That said - we do find it more fun as family activity so there isn't any reason for him to work on it alone. I am quite sure he could do this on his if he wanted to badly enough, but I do not think his interest in it would last long enough to complete alone once he started getting frustrated with difficult bits. I believe a child who really enjoys doing jigsaws alone frequently would be able to do this by age 7 though - perhaps even age 6. I also feel if a parent is willing to help even very young children can get involved. My youngest was only 3 when we bought this - and he did need a lot of help - but he still had quite a bit of fun as well.
I am sure a few children might find this scene a bit too disgusting. If your child is very squeamish about internal organs, then this obviously is not the best way to introduce the subject - but I think most children find disgusting good fun. I feel the amount of information specifically relating to science is limited, and most children would learn more from a good book, but a puzzle is a good way to break things up a bit, and keep learning fun - and of course I feel all puzzles have real value in education - or just as a fun family activity.
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National Geographic Crystal Growing Kit
by Elaineee
This National Geographic Giant Crystal Growing Kit was bought for Christmas a couple of years ago. Father Christmas bought it for around £20 and it's widely available and can be found cheaper. National Geographic is a brand that you presume is going to be of good quality but this kit was disappointing.
The box looks smart and ... professional (you know what I mean) the crystals pictured look great. The kit is for children 10 years and over, and I think needs an adult to supervise. Inside the box there is an impressive array of stuff:
Plaster of paris
3 petri dishes
2 plastic moulds
1 large measuring cup
1 small measuring cup
2 measuring spoons
Tweezers
Plastic funnel
Eye dropper
Thread
15 granite base rocks
Magnifying glass
Display stand
15 blank labels
Instruction book
Aluminium potassium sulphate
Monoammonium phosphate
Everything you need (except the jam jar) to make 12 different fantastic crystals- shame it didn't really!
The first problem we encountered was the instructions, poor to say the least, anyway we followed them as best we could. My son was keen so after popping on the goggles we got started. There was a lot of faff making these, you have to measure the chemicals with water and then heat it up in a pan to dissolve the salt crystals which was the second hurdle as you aren't supposed to over heat. Third hurdle was the colour of it, if you spill some it won't ever come off (I know this for a fact!!). Of course it was everywhere!! strangely it didn't stain my pan- just a pine table which needed sanding.
Having done the heating, mixing and then pouring into a jam jar we put it away and waited. Some crystals started forming after a few hours and a days later we had our first 'crystal'. It was rubbish, the colours were vibrant- too much so, they didn't hold together and we ended up with a crumbled mess, not really a display piece.
After several attempts we gave up and it ended up gathering dust on the shelf. For us it didn't work very well and what results we did have were poor. Saying that my son enjoyed mixing the chemicals and then checking everyday to see what was happening so in that respect it was okay. Experimenting is seeing what will happen whether successful or not so on that grounds I would recommend it.
I'm giving it 3 stars for that reason alone.
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Deluxe Water Rocket Launcher Set
by broxi3781
I love toys that are educational, but first and foremost I feel a toy has to be fun. We had read up a bit on explosions and rockets ( in fact I'm afraid I looked up explosions so many times online I may now appear on terrorist watch lists) and my sons absolutely love a simple vinegar and baking soda science museum rocket, but we are ... forever running out of vinegar and baking soda. it isn't uncommon for us to go through an entire bottle of vinegar and a couple of tubs of baking soda in a single day. Water and air would provide an unlimited fuel supply so we started hunting for water powered rockets.
When I first saw this set, I was immediately reminded of a small red rocket I had owned as child which I believe my uncle had bought for me. Nostalgia kicked in - making me willing to pay a bit over the odds - but my rocket was brilliant. It eventually broke as the inevitable consequence of shooting too high into the sky and crashing down on a paved road one time too many, but while it worked it really was a cracker. So , at nearly £20, this set was expensive - but it might just be worth it if it was anything like my old rocket. I ordered on amazon and waited .... and waited and waited and waited. I had failed to notice the seller is in the USA - so this took 2 months to arrive.
Once this did arrive my children happily ripped open the box and raced outdoors to give it a try. The contents of the box are all in the photo above. you get two short squat rockets, one long thin one, two funnels and a hand pump. There are no instructions, there is no fill line on the rockets and you just have to guess how much water to add. We started off with half and half, which did not work. More water was even worse so we started cutting down on water We eventually ended up using 1 1/2 little funnels full. Anything less and the rocket wouldn't go, anything more and it wouldn't go as high.
Despite hours of experiments to achieve the best water measurements - I'm afraid we never did get spectacular results. If you have it filled just right , pump very quickly until the pressure builds up enough and then release at just the right moment you might get a flight of up to 8 feet. Most of the time though, it is much less. I was terribly dissapointed by this, and I think I would have ended up giving this only a 2 star rating. I do remember that our rockets would really hurt if they hit you, and I can't help but wonder if some health and safety regulation, or fear of legal action has caused these to be deliberately powered down.
But this is a child's toy and it isn't my opinion that counts ( as much as I really did want to play with this too). Not having my beloved wee red rocket to compare it to, my sons really thought this was quite good,and have had many days playing out on the green with these rockets and a bottle of water. The set has survived the summer with no damage whatsoever - of course it doesn't go high enough to experience serious crash landings - but we should get another summer or perhaps many more summers out of this toy. While I think this looks a bit cheap - considering what I paid for it but the children did like the colours and clear plastic, and this has been used as just a model with superheroes and such as well.
I think children do learn a little bit of science from toys like this. They learn that when pressure builds up enough, it results in an explosion of sorts, in this case just an explosion of air and water forcing the rocket upwards. Real rockets are powered by much more powerful explosions involving fuel and flames, but the principle is not so different. The force of this explosion allows the rocket to defeat the pull of gravity for a few seconds, but once that force is used up, then the pull of gravity once again forces the rocket back to earth. I tell them little facts like this briefly while we are playing, but the whole point is really to have fun - learning is just a nice extra. I honestly do think children remember facts better when presented with fun and play, and I would class this toy as mildly educational.
My sons felt this should receive a 5 star rating - but I don't think they have a real concept of the value for money aspect of this. I simply do not feel that this was good value for money - but when I consider how much the children enjoy this, I do not regret the purchase. In fact - I supose if something happened to it - i would very begrudgingly buy another. I would prefer a 3.5 star rating but as that is not option I will go ahead and give this 4 stars. if you happen to find one at a better price, I would have no problem in recommending it - but at the current price of £18.94 after postage, I can not recommend this myself unless you have plenty of money to spend.
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