My son received lots of presents for his recent birthday, including a horrible science shocking rocket kit. The toy is made by Galt and comes in a cardboard packet .I am keen on toys that are not only fun, but help to teach a child something through play. This toy promised to do both these things.

Whats in the box?
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The box contains all you need to make the rocket, but you will need a decent bicycle or car tyre pump to launch it. Inside the box is-

1 plastic bottle or rocket, a plastic nose cone, plastic fins, rubber stopper to seal the bottle,valve,stickers to decorate your rocket prior to launch and a horrible science fact sheet with instructions showing you how to build and launch your rocket. There is also some tape included for fixing the fins to your rocket.

My 10 year old son had no problems building the rocket and it was ready for launching within a very short space of time. Galt recommend this toy for children from age 6 and above. Younger children may well need a bit of help to put the rocket together. I like to be involved with my children's activities as I enjoy the conversations we can have around how things work. The rocket is assembled by fitting the nose cone onto the bottle and taping the fins into place. Once the stickers are in place you are nearly ready to launch!

How it works.
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I think this is the difficult part and you really do need 2 people to make this work. The bottle needs to be filled with 30ml of water and the stopper placed in the top of the bottle to seal it. Next the rocket needs to be stood upright on its fins. The bicycle pump is then connected to the valve at the bottom of the rocket and pumped until (in theory) the rocket takes off. In reality we found the rocket would often tip over before we could launch it successfully. However we did get better with practice! You need to keep the pump as still as possible whilst pumping so it doesn't pull the rocket off balance. The alternative is to have someone holding the rocket until it has enough air pumped into it to take off. As the rocket launches the water ( fuel) explodes out of the rocker soaking anyone in its path.

My sons opinion
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My son had a lot of fun with this toy and would recommend it. He enjoyed making it although felt it wasn't much of a challenge for someone of his age. He did get a bit frustrated when it kept collapsing before launch. The flights have been varied with some reaching a decent height and other flopping. The rocket is quite robust and even after numerous crash landings is still ok. My son also thinks it would be more fun to launch the rocket when the sun is shining as getting soaked repeatedly can get cold!

Overall I think this is a good toy and would make a great Christmas present. I like the fact sheet included that tells you how the rocket works and explains gravity in easy to understand child friendly language. The rocket is available from several retailers including John Lewis ( £5.95) and Amazon (£3.99).