Science Kits

This is a pretty cool kit, and one that is probably completely unique to Thames and Kosmos. There are plenty of manufacturers out there of your standard chemistry kits and maybe some general science kits as well, but this company has something for about every field of science.

This one in particular deals with optical illusions and how human perception works. Kids will learn about such things as their blind spot, which eye is dominant, and even how our brain works with our eyes  to perceive color, light, perspective, size, depth, shape and motion. The Thames & Kosmos Mind’s Eye Kit is for ages 10 and up and as usual with their kits, the age recommendation is right on. I looked at the instruction manual for this one and immediately knew that it would be too advanced for my first grade son.

You can pick up one of these wherever the best selling toys are found. My overall recommendation: a great kit (for ages 10 to the early teen years), and a great price if you can find it for under $70.

This is a pretty cool book. There are exactly 1,000 questions so it’ll take a long time of playing with it before you start getting duplicate questions. The cool thing about it is that two people can play. How it works is, when it’s your turn, it shows you a question number. You flip to that question in the book, read it and punch in your answer. It immediately tells you if you got it right or wrong and if wrong, it tells you the correct answer. Then the next player goes, and then back to player one. It keeps track of your score so there is a winner at the end of the game. If you’re playing alone, it still keeps track of your score and you can compete against yourself the next time you play. A two-player game takes maybe 10 minutes to play. Overall, this is a great book, even though it’s really more of a science toy or an electronic learning game than a book. For the price (around $20) it’s highly recommended.