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.

    A lot of you may have heard of Sue, the T-Rex and wondered who the heck she is. Well, she is the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton ever found.  Sue was found in 1990 by the paleontologist Sue Hendrickson. The great dino was named after her (although it isn’t known if the specimen was male or female.) Another interesting tidbit about Sue the T-Rex is that the fossil skeleton was sold for the highest amount ever paid for a dinosaur. You can see this great dinosaur now at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Or, you can pick up this cool Paint & Play dinosaur kit at your favorite science toy store. One of the coolest things about this, and all dinosaurs, is that we really don’t know what colors dinosaurs were. Scientists and paleontologists make their best guesses based on where they lived, what their natural environment was like, what they ate, etc. But the truth is, we’re not completely sure if the T-Rex was brown, green, gray or bluish purple. I’m betting it wasn’t bluish purple, but who knows?

Dinosaurs make great educational toys and the Tyrannosaurus Rex is one of the coolest of them all. This kit comes with paint and a brush so kids can use their imagination to make her any color they want. So for about $12-14 US, this Sue the T-Rex Paint and Play kit is a pretty nice toy.

SmartLab Toys has done a great job of producing chemistry, physics and general electronics science toys, but with the introduction of their You-build-it Rock Star Microphone they’ve branched into an almost new area. With this kit, kids get to build their own microphone. Okay, so they’re not soldering capacitors and resistors to integrated circuit boards, but they do get to somewhat put the microphone together.

And while doing this, they’ll be reading along in the excellent book included and learning about acoustics, multi-track recording and even some tips for performing on stage (even if the stage is their living room and the audience is their parents.) Some of us middle-aged parents will remember the Mr. Microphone and the cheesy commercial- “Hey good looking. Be back to pick you up later.” The principle of the SmartLab Rock Star Microphone is similar to that. Kids build the headset microphone, clip the transmitter to their belt and broadcast their voice to a nearby radio.

Overall review- while the sound quality isn’t great, it’s decent and the true benefit from this kit is what kids learn while building it and reading the great manual. For about $25 US, I can highly recommend this kit.

This is a pretty cool learning toy. While it’s not particularly a science toy, it is still pretty educational. And still pretty fun. It’s basically a geography quiz, but with a hands-on tactile aspect to it (the globe). Kids can pick a category like the US and Canada, other continents or the entire world. And with over 10,000 questions, kids won’t get bored too quickly. One thing I wondered about with this one (as with any toy using a recorded voice) was the quality of the sound. And actually, the voice in this one was surprisingly pretty good.

Plus, it’s got some pretty cool sound effects and lights that make learning with it fun (even though kids won’t realize how much they’re learning.) Another bonus is the music. It plays music from around the world. While not many kids will recognize the national anthem of Spain, they will definitely be able to tell the differences in the music from various countries. This little addition just made it an overall more enjoyable toy to play with.

Okay, so I can’t call this one of my favorite science toys, it is definitely one of my favorite educational toys. It’s for ages 8 and up and you can usually pick up the Geosafari Talking Globe for about $80 US.

For an entry level microscope, this is a pretty good choice. I tried this one out with my five-year-old son and it was just about the right size for his small hands. It comes with a couple of slides and a what they call a “curiosity box” for observing things other than standard slides. It does work pretty well with standard slides though. We had the most fun when we found common items around our house and looked at them up close. It also has some tweezers and a scalpel for helping you to make your own slides. This part does need some adult supervision, but for looking at standard items (hairs, bugs, pennies), my kid was able to do most of it on his own.

For about $40, this the Learning Resources Primary Microscope is a pretty good set-up for getting children interested in biology. There are lots of other children’s microscopes out there, some less expensive and some much more expensive, but this is a good choice if you want to start somewhere in the middle. You can get this one wherever the best science toys are sold, or you can follow the link above.

This is a pretty fun kit for any kid who likes to root around in the backyard looking at plants and bugs. There are quite a few educational activities packed into this toy and this is truly one of the most fun science kits I’ve reviewed so far. Kids can make their own greenhouse and plant some of the seeds it comes with, or what’s even more fun, plant some common household beans from your pantry. These grow fast and most kids appreciate the near-instant gratification. This kit comes with some mini-gardening hand tools, four pots for your plants and even a small little ant farm.

Probably what I like best about this is the great information that comes on the project cards. Of course, I’m an adult (mostly) and I like the advice this toy gives me in how to teach my kids about nature. For around $30, I can highly recommend the Ein-O Science Nature Explorer Kit.

This is a pretty fun educational toy for exploring space and learning a bit about our solar system. It’s made by Interactive For All which, as far as I can tell, is primarily a children’s educational software company. This kit does come with a CD-ROM which is fairly informative (but nothing too advanced). What makes me give this the “cool science toy” designation is really the glow-in-the-dark space mobile. It’s got a few planets, a space shuttle and a cute little astronaut. They’re not to scale of course, as the astronaut is bigger than Saturn, but not many kids will care when they’re putting this together and hanging it from their ceiling. It does look pretty darn cool when the lights go out.

There’s also a space shuttle model to put together. It doesn’t glow but it’s pretty cool in its own right. Another semi-cool aspect of this toy is the 3-D movie on the CD-ROM and 3-D glasses. The movie is pretty short and not terribly spectacular, but like I said, it’s semi-cool. And maybe a 7-year-old kid would think it’s a bit more fun than I did. Probably so. Overall, a nice kit for just over thirty bucks.

This is one seriously advanced experimental science kit. If you’re thinking about introducing your child to a study of some of our more renewable energy sources, you can’t go wrong with this kit. With this cool science toy, you get to put a basic model car together- then add a solar cell and hydrogen fuel cell to provide the power. It uses the solar cell to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. The fuel cell then uses these gases to produce electricity to actually drive the car.

The experiments in the Thames and Kosmos Fuel Cell Car range from fairly basic to very advanced, but the manual that comes with it is truly first rate. Thames and Kosmos makes some great physics and chemistry sets and this is one of their best. I wholeheartedly recommend this for the environmentally conscious parent who wants their child to learn about some of the science that we may come to rely on in their generation.