Science Reviews

This thing is fantastic. It has 75 possible experiments that can be done without help if you stay within the age group recommended. Kids can use the included wires to make bells, buzzers, lights, sirens, and more. It's all about following the diagram and connecting the included wires to the terminals. That's all there is too it. It travels well too for hours and I mean hours of fun in the car. The parts are all connected to the board so there's nothing to fall out. You can buy extra wire anywhere. This "toy" is a great value.

We gave this as a present to a child who is very into weather. It came in a ton of small peices and was so much smaller than we expected. It just wasn't worth it.

I was so excited to purchase this only to be totally disappointed with the quality. The pieces would not stay together. The unit toppled over when we tried to set it outside to gather rain. Definitely bumbed us out!

My nephew loved the weather station. Unfortunatelly, the wind arrow was not included. He was extremely disapointed. It was easy to assemble and the other weather indicators work.

This rock set is really nice in that they give you more ideas about what you can do with the rocks than most kits do. I get really tired of earth science kits that only have you do streak tests and compare hardness and so forth. We really liked hitting the rocks together and causing the spark, though my son was not coordinated enough to do it and it took me a bit to get it to work. Some of the other experiemnts were really neat too.

Value-wise, I wish they included more rocks and experiments for the price. I have bought rock kits for this price that had twice as many rocks, but didn't have anywhere near as cool of experiements.

Also, I wish the geode was larger. It was really nice inside though.

Whatever you do, do not buy this microscope! The LED light is too bright and you are unable to adjust it. It is near impossible to see anything through the eye piece and the view screen on the front is a joke. You can barely get anything in focus because as soon as you let go off the focus knob everything goes out of focus.

This toy is made entirely of cheap plastic and it just about the worst microscope I've ever used. Spare yourself the aggrivation and don't order this!

Although she's younger than the recommended age, my 5 year-old daughter got this microscope as a gift and it has been great. She has trouble seeing through a regular viewer, so the screen on the side is a huge help. I brought it in to her Kindergarten class and showed the kids various slides and they were thrilled. I did find it difficult to see clearly through the eyepiece, which may explain the criticism by older kids. But for the price, I think it's a good toy for younger kids.

I hadn't read the previous reviews until after I ordered this microscope for my grandaughter, so I was very nervous before its' arrival. It's a great first microscope, but an adult needs to be there to help the child learn to use it. Adjustment of the height, and magnification is necessary; same as with a more expensive microscope. Our first project, after examining the included slides, was to compare samples of my hair and hers. She was totally in awe to see the hairs at 300x. At 900x she was speechless. I feel that this was a great investment, not only as a teaching instrument, but also as an activity that can be shared.

No children... bought this mobile for my office, I'm setting my sights on the final frontier. A better mobile might exist, but I never found it. The mobile consists of cardstock photos from NASA; I would not say it is durable, but it hangs from the ceiling so that should not be a deterent... as children should probably not be hanging from the ceiling anyway. It's easy to put together if you have two sets of hands and hangs beautifully once in place. Unlike a lot of the other mobiles I saw, this one has a sun... nice touch. I would highly recommend this product. The world needs more mobiles.