This is our third month’s review as part of Bandai STEM Ambassadors and it was as challenging a project as we’ve ever done. Both kits, the Crystal Lab and Sea-Monkeys, need a lot of patience and they all need to be set in the right environment to grow!
In case you didn’t know about National Geographic, they make a huge range of STEM sets which allow your child/children to explore, create and discover something amazing about the natural world! There is so much out there for us to discover and learn about our amazing world!
In our first month, we reviewed the Gemstone and Shark Tooth STEM kits and this was followed by the Geode set in the second month. We all love the kits. They are really fun and educational.
This month, we are looking at this Crystal Lab kit. It comes with crystal growing powder, seed crystal rock, magnifying glass, wood stir stick, rock specimen, plastic display stand, instructions and guide. Before starting to glow the crystal, we need a clean jar or plastic cup to contain the crystal. Also, newspaper or cardboard to help protect the area you are working on.
We boiled the water and mixed in the powder. We then waited for at least 15 minutes for the solution to cool down before dropping in the seed rock. On our day 1, it was quite visible that crystals have formed around the seed. Then around day 6, we have had a lot more crystals surrounding the seed which you can see in this picture. Now we just have to be more patient and wait for it to grow more! The longer you let the experiment sit, the larger your crystal will grow! The guide is informative and helps children to understand more about crystals. This is available to buy from good toy retailers, online and Amazon.
Next, we have the Sea-monkeys kit which comes with a tank, feeding spoon, three pouches and instructions. This experiment takes at least 5 days before you can see the sea-monkeys!
Before you start anything, get a bottle of mineral water and fill the tank. Then add pouch 1 which is the water purifier. On the second day, add your instant life eggs. Give the water a stir every day to add oxygen for the baby sea-monkeys. On our fifth day, we saw a lot of babies swimming around and we were very excited. We fed them a small spoonful of pouch 3 feed. But the excitement came to an abrupt end by the following day, as there were none left and all the white bits were floating on the surface of the water. They all managed to hatch but it was a shame that they were not able to survive. It is probably just our bad luck! Nevertheless, this was a fun experiment for us all. This is available to buy from Argos.
Both kits are great to educate children and keep them entertained. I would definitely recommend them. For more information, please visit www.bandai.co.uk.
Disclosure: We received the samples for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own. We are a Bandai STEM ambassador.
