Science Reviews

The Customer Service at this Company was terrible. The larvae were sent to the wrong person and then they refused to replace them. I was hung up on and just treated as though I owed them something. Buy something else if you don't want your child to be disappointed.

We bought this ant hill at the Imaginarium and ordered the ants with the prepaid form. When the ants arrived the majority of them were dead with only ten out of fifty survived the trip to Alaska. I immediately emailed the company and didn't hear back from them. A week later another set of ants arrived. It would have been nice to have a reply to the email but they were very quick in sending the replacement ants at no charge. Both my kids, 5 and 2 years old, love to watch them digging their tunnels and talking about what they are up to. Unfortunately because of the cold weather for mailing our ant hill sits empty waiting for spring. I would definitely recommend this product to anyone with an interest in bugs.

Having live stinging ants in my home is definitely outside my comfort zone. That being said, this was a great product for my kids. All of them, 2 to teen loved watching the ants dig and tunnel. Even my squeamish self enjoyed watching the tunnels develop. Ants are truly amazing workers. Among the ants that arrived only two were dead. The one draw back was this. The product said the ants would live 2 to 4 weeks. They survived much longer, necessitating caring for them longer than I expected.

Pretty nice game. The illustrations do not look exactly like the characters in the movie. They are more like cartoon illustrated (see front cover-- the illustrations inside are similar). This was a little dissappointing at first. The voices are pretty good, it has some nice songs, and teaches some educational facts about the sea. My son's favorite part is the deep sea page.

This is a really Neat leap pad book! My kids LOVED the movie! And were ecstatic, to get the leap pad book. It has some entertaining games, and my kids ask to play this book alot more than others. I highly recommend this book! It has alot of FUN stuff in it. I hope your children like it as much as my 7, 6, and 3 year olds do.. :)

Alex got this for Christmas and absolutely loves it! This is neck and neck w/Lion King as his favorite LeapPad book. The best part for the 'big people' in the house are the jellyfish game and the turtle game.

Very much to the manufacturer's credit, the manuals that come with most Snapz products are online as pdf files. See www.elenco.com and click "User Manuals."

If you examine the manuals for this "Snapz Pro" product -- which is apparently called the SC-500 on the manufacturer site -- you will find that the entertainment value should be fairly high, there are a lot of whizzy gimmicks you can build. However the educational value -- in terms of learning anything whatever about electronics -- is about zero. All you do is match the color and shape of the components to a picture and snap them together. There is no attempt to differentiate the components other than by color and shape -- the relative meanings and functions of, for example, a "resistor" versus a "capacitor" versus an "FM radio chip" are simply not explained. It's just so many brightly colored units that are to be connected in a directed pattern.

The projects are not graded from simple to complex, the first ones in the manual are quite elaborate but simpler ones appear later on.

The same company also offers electronic training courses using the same components but with teaching manuals that are graded from simple to complex and do teach the meanings of the components, but this is not one of those.

I just played with this (Snap Circuits Junior) for the first time and came looking to buy one for my kids.

In response to the person who said the manuals have errors, see the web site http://www.snapcircuits.net/ (and also http://www.elenco.com/ as mentioned below.) In particular there is a page that gives corrections to all the manuals: http://www.snapcircuits.net/updates.doc .

Another concern I had is which kit to buy: Junior, Pro, etc.? On the snapcircuits web site they have a price list for replacement parts and upgrade kits. For the difference in price between the kits you can upgrade from one to the next so this takes some of the worry about of the purchase (for me at least). http://www.snapcircuits.net/scparts.pdf

Outstanding game which *grows* with your child -- as you can upgrade the kit. Projects range from simple to complex. Snapping connections is easy for the kids. Just as an example, my child quickly picked up the concepts of "switches" once he assembly the first few projects. Also helps in troubleshooting -- what is the diff bet. a open and closed circuit ?

Only "con" -- wish there was more details about the project and how does it work. Many project are variations of a "base" project. Say -- substitute bulb with the Motor.

As an enhancement it will be very cool to have small LEDs on the connections showing the flow of electricity !!

Overall a must have science kit for children ! You won't waste your money on this one !

Sea monkeys are for everyone- My brother and I LOVE it!! Just make sure you research them on sea-monkey.com just a little bit and those little guys are in good hands-They great fo first pets and you don't need to feed them constantly, just a little bit once a week!!Get ready to have fun... I recommend them to all!

When I was a wee lad of 10, I walked inside Spencer's Gifts in South Florida. After sampling some edible underwear, and looking inside every stupid cardboard box gag gift, I saw this incredible blister pack of Sea-Monkeys. I'd seen the ads in comic books, and was still gun-shy of comic book mail order after the "corrugated cardboard" submarine fiasco (fits two, My Aunt Mimi!), but there it was, the grail of grails.

The kit I'm reviewing harkens back to those halcyon days, and the goods still delivers. USE DISTILLED WATER, PLEASE!!! You want your monkeys to live, or what? You could pay less for a basic set, but you gotta swoon over the retro graphics of this set. Buy it, puhleeeeze!

Sea-Monkeys are AWESOME!!I didn't get the Sea-Monkeys: The Miracle of Instant Life, butt... I got the My first pet kit.
You should go to sea-monkeys.com (just add www. to sea-monkeys.com) before you buy them. It tells you EVRYTHING about them! They really hatch! You should get them 1 day ahead of time because when you add the water purifier you HAVE TO wait 1 day to add the eggs. You can buy other stuff online to. Hope you enjoy your new pets!

The Electronic Playground reminds me very much of the type of electronics kit I had when I was young. I bought this for my son who is 6. While the instructions and details were a little above his head the kit was not. The projects are very straight forward and the the wiring guides are as easy as "connect the dots" (really!). My only minor complaint is that the frame is a bit flimsier (paper and plastic)then I would like.

My son and I did two projects in about 2 hours (two of the smaller ones) and I was able to use the kit to make some customizations (leverage the variable resistor add a light to the electronic buzzer etc.) and show him how circuits/components can be expanded and improved.

But beyond the ease of use the instruction booklet is really quite an excellent resource on basic electronics. For an older child the kit could/should provide a pretty good grounding (pardon the pun). The combination of straight forward instructions (so you get get things to work) and well written explanations (so you know why they work) is great.

I really can't wait to do more projects with my son or ....
maybe I'll just borrow it at night and do them myself.

This IS the best educational toy I have ever seen! With all the bells and whistles you could possibly want, it's the perfect way to start your kid learning electronics. I would suggest being at least 11 years old though because the going can get a little tough for younger kids after the 10th of 50 experiments! The only problem is you might not want to put it on something unstable because it is a little delicate. Otherwise enjoy a nice gift for someone just starting electronics!

This has been VERY helpful in teaching my second grader her math facts off of the top of her head. She was still counting on her fingers. This has helped her get out of this habit and she's able to recite more math facts off of the top of her head since she's been "playing" with it. Fabulous, I highly recommend it!!