Here’s another one of the really cool science toys I’ve gotten to play with recently. This is one of the “Smart Boxes” in the Ein-O Science line put out by Tedco Toys. All their Smart Boxes are pretty clever and this one is no exception. It comes with the stuff to do five aeronautic projects. The projects are:

1) The high-rise kite: very cool.
2) Foam Jet Plane: this is okay, but nothing much more than a foam jet you might get at the dollar store.
3) Twirler Flyer: pretty nifty.
4) Balloon Lift Off: again, very cool.
5) Flying disk: nothing too special here.

What really makes these Ein-O Science Kits special is the great instruction books they come with. The packaging of the kit itself is pretty catchy and will pique the interest of any kid interested in planes or space ships. For about $12 US, I’ll rate the value of the Ein-O Flight Science very high.

This is a great tool for teaching young kids the alphabet and sounds the letters make. It’s got over 500 three letter words which is plenty for the child just starting to learn to read. I do wish they would have mixed in at least a few four-letter words (not that kind of four-letter word), and maybe even some elementary five-letter words.

It features a standard 1/4 inch headphone jack; raised tactile letter keys that light up during game play; 7 interactive beginning reading games; 20 colorful double-sided word cards; 28-page reproducible book with assessments sight word cards, and simple storybooks students can make and read themselves; and a Teachers Guide.

From the manufacturer’s description of the GeoSafari Phonics Lab: “Seven fun learning games: 1) Alphabet Song - Sing along and learn the ABCs! 2) Lets Learn the Alphabet - Learn as you light up the letters! 3) Lights Out Alphabet Search - Test your Alphabet I.Q. as you switch off the lights! 4) Lets Learn the Sound Alphabet - Discover letter sounds as you light up each letter! 5) Lights Out Sound Search - Check your Sound Alphabet I.Q. 6) Secret Word Maker - Learn to spell 120 three-letter words! 7) Word Explorer - Spell almost any three-letter word (word bank has over 500 words!).”

Overall, this is a pretty nice learning toy. It made at least one top 10 list of the best selling Christmas toys of 2008.

These are some pretty cool science toys for the little kids. The Thames and Kosmos Little Labs series are geared for kids from 5-7 and they do a pretty good job of capturing the interest of this age group. With this particular kit, kids will learn about mechanical physics by building simple machines such as levers, gears, and pulleys. You can also give them a quick lesson about forces and motion and how they apply to our everyday world. It also comes with a 16-page color guidebook which is one of the best things about this series.

The simple pictorial instructions included in all Little Labs have just enough text to reinforce vocabulary and aid in language learning, and also to advise parents and adult supervisors. The instructions are written in both English and Spanish, to help teach Spanish as a second language to native English speakers and also make the kits more accessible to native Spanish-speaking children.

Overall review: like all kits in the Thames and Kosmos Little Labs series, this is an excellent introduction to teaching your youngster the basics of the scientific process. At about $15 US, they’re not cheap, but then again, the educational value they provide is well worth it. You can find this and other best selling toys at Atomic Elephant Toy.

If you’ve read many of the reviews on this site, you’ll know that I love almost all of the Ein-O Science Kits. These test tube kits are just as fun (and educational) as the rest in their line. This one is about egg science and comes with a manual to guide kids through six experiments they can do with eggs. Have you ever seen an egg bounce? Your kid will after doing the experiment called the “Pickled Egg Bounce.” Then they can make a spinning top out of an egg. And do a quick study about egg proteins. And one of my favorite demonstrations was how you can tell a hard-boiled egg from a raw one by spinning it on a flat surface. Very cool.

Overall, the Ein-O Test Tube Egg Science kit is one of the more fun (albeit simple) educational toys in this line. And for about $12 US, it’s really a great buy.

You can find one wherever Ein-O science kits are sold.

Okay, so this isn’t strictly a science toy, but it does involve construction and a certain amount of critical thinking. This particular kit by Jumbnetics had 49 pieces of colorful plastic sticks, balls and magnets. Not to worry about the magnets though, they are completely encased in the balls and are safe for kids as young as 18 months old.

I love construction toys for the valuable skill of critical thinking they provide. My six year old son loves Legos but my one year old daughter is still at the stage where everything she touches ends up in her mouth. That’s why I’ll be letting her play with these Jumbonetics Construction Toys one here in a few months.

This is a pretty cool kit. Kids will learn the science behind 10 clever magic tricks. You’ve got a prism, some optical illusion cards, dominoes, and of course a magic wand. And I love the Ein-O science guides; they are truly first rate. This one is no different and explains the tricks you learn in easy-to-understand language. I’d say this kit would be pretty good for ages 8-10, but a bright 7 year old would benefit as well. You can’t find these kits at just any toy store, but there are several great stores for educational toys online.

My favorite store for science toys is Atomic Elephant Toy and you can get the Ein-O Magical Mystery Box of Science from them for about $18 U.S.

This was a pretty no-frills kit, but with some pretty cool science fair type projects in it. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of chemist makes perfume, well, I guess it would be one who does stuff like you do when you experiment with this kit. The concept is pretty clever, and while it’s actually easy to do the experiments, I found it kind of challenging to make perfume that really smelled good. I don’t think the perfume makers are in any danger from me. But… my future chemist kid could be. My son, yes a boy, and I played with this kit. He wanted to make some perfume that his beautiful mom would love to wear. Well, that didn’t really happen, but we had a lot of fun experimenting with the scents we did make (even the stinky ones). And the learning that he got out of it made it one of the most successful science toys that we’ve played with yet.

In this one, we used sample cards called base perfumes to create our own “special blends.” Okay, that’s what the box called it. We called them our own “stinky blends.” But they weren’t really that bad. The real fun was the measuring and mixing the extracts, then separating and filtering them. He said he felt like a real chemist which I got a kick out of.

Overall, this was a pretty fun kit. It made Atomic Elephant Toy’s list of top 12 best selling toys of 2008 and I can see why. It was just pretty fun overall.

If you’ve ever seen the insta-snow endorsed by Steve Spangler or Be Amazing Toys, you’ll know what this is all about. As far as science kits go, this stuff is pretty cool. They claim that the small polymer-like substance will expand to 100 times their dry size when put in water. I haven’t measured them with a micrometer, but I’d guess that’s a fair guess as to how much they expand. Imagine a small Styrofoam coffee cup, filled about 3/4 full of water. Now imagine putting a very small scoop (about 1/2 a teaspoon) of Insta-Snow powder in this cup. It will actually fill up and start overflowing the cup in just a few seconds. It’s a pretty amazing demonstration.

I saw this on a list of the Top 12 best selling toys of 2008 and can see why. It would make a great demo for science teachers studying polymers or the absorbing properties of water. Plus it’s just cool to watch and play with. This “Blizzard in a Bucket” kit comes with enough fake snow to make hundreds of classroom demos or one big summertime snowball fight.

Like many of the Thames & Kosmos science kits, this is one pretty advanced toy. I hesitate to actually call this a toy as it is a great electronics set for learning about how computers work. But I’ll call it a toy based on the simple fact that this is pretty darn fun. While many kids today know how to operate a computer, how many actually know how a computer works? The more educated may know that a computer operates with a bunch of switches that are either on or off represented by a bunch of ones and zeros. But other than that, do many people really know what’s going on in their CPU? Probably not.

Students will learn how a computer works at the most basic level and how these fundamental principles of electronics apply to the devices that actually control computers and electronic devices. Microcontrollers are everywhere and are embedded in more devices and appliances than most people realize. A toaster with a digital display will have one. A microwave may have a few. And a space shuttle will have thousands.

This kit will introduce students to microcontrollers, sensors, and general computer programming by showing them how to complete over a hundred experiments. But what makes this one of the best science kits is the fact that after doing a few of the experiments in the manual, kids will already be thinking of how they can create their own micro-controlled devices. The number of possibilities are limitless. If you have a child interested in science toys, you can’t go wrong with this one.

This kit would make a great addition to any homeschooled child’s curriculum or to any kid interested in computers and electronics. The manual and experiments are geared for the middle-school to high-school aged child. My overall recommendation– despite the fairly expensive price, the Thames & Kosmos Microcontroller is one of the best learning tools out there.

Many of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies (and probably earlier too) might remember putting together a crystal radio kit. I remember my first one- from a Radio Shack kit when I was 10 years old back in 1980. It was one of the few Christmas presents I specifically remember asking for. It was on a plastic and cardboard base with spring terminals, some wires, the crystal and a small ear piece speaker. To this day I remember the thrill of making an AM radio work without batteries, and the excitement when I first heard an actual radio station.

Well, I don’t know if Radio Shack still makes their crystal radio kit, but Slinky Science Kits now have this one. It is very similar to the one I put together almost 30 years ago and just playing with this one was a real blast from the past for me. If you’re thinking about introducing your child to this neat topic that was the forerunner to the transistor radio, you can’t go wrong with this kit. This is one of the more educational toys you can get for under $10. Recommended for ages 8 and up, this is a pretty solid kit and will actually entertain and educate for kids u    p to about 12 years old. Unless of course, you want to relive a part of your past, I’d say it’s fun for all ages.

This radio kit was a previous winner of the Dr. Toy Best Classic Toys Award.