Growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits

Growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits – AD sent for review and giveaway

With the changeable weather conditions we’ve had recently I knew we’d need some indoor activities to keep my nine-year old son entertained.  I’m all for learning through play and we’ve been having fun over the last week and growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits.  We’ve been sent the Prehistoric Sea Dogs and Crystal Geode sets, which are both aimed at children aged 8 years and over.

Growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits

The great thing about growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits is that you don’t get instant results, patience is required as well as good observation skills.

The Prehistoric Sea Dogs set comes with a bowl, salt sachet, spatula and pipette, sachet of eggs, sachet of food, measuring cup and instruction leaflet.

prehistoric sea dogs

We’ve used a similar kit before so my son already knew that patience would be key to this experiment as you need to wait a few days for the eggs to start hatching, and then once they have, it takes a few more weeks for them to be a size where you can really see them well without a magnifying glass.  The instruction leaflet mentioned that the kit should have contained a magnifying glass which is didn’t, but the photo on the product box didn’t include this item.  so I’m not sure whether it really should have been included or not.

You need to be careful with feeding them as they only need a tiny sesame seed size amount of shrimp food every two weeks.  It’s also really important to keep their water environment well oxygenated with the pipette provided.  if too much algae starts to form then you can use the pipette to remove it from the water.  It’s an ongoing project and one that will keep my son entertained for weeks to come.  There’s plenty of eggs and food provided and if you look after the shrimps well you will see them reproduce and the cycle will begin again.  The instruction leaflet also gives advice on what salt solution to use should you wish to repeat the experiment in future.

The Crystal Geode set was a completely new experiment for us and we had no idea what to expect.  The set comes with a mould, 2 sachets of potassium sulphate, 1 bag of red dye, 1 bag of plaster, plastic mould, measuring cup and wooden spatula, as well as an instruction booklet.

Growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits

There are three stages to this particular kit, you produce the seed crystals, fill the mould and then grow the crystals.  The whole procedure takes about four days to complete.  So again, some patience is required but my son has loved watching the transformation as the crystals formed.

You will need a preserving jar (we used an empty glass food container) and some sort of plastic storage pot for this experiment.  Children learn about keeping safe around hot water, as parents learn that the red dye really does stain fingers (if only temporarily).  My son found it hilarious that he managed to avoid getting any of it on him.  But that aside, the instructions are easy to follow.

The seed crystals are produced my melting a packet of crystal powder in water being warmed through the glass.  Then the solution is allowed to cool. You then use half the plaster powder  (I’m not sure why the kit isn’t supplied with either less plaster or more of the other ingredients so you could make another Geode), mix with water and pour into the mould, then add the seed crystals to the wet plaster.  We used a spoon to extract the crystals from the water and then my son scattered them over the mould.  Leave for 24 hours.

The next day you repeat the process with the second packet of crystal powder but once the crystals have dissolved you add the red dye powder to the jar and then pour the solution into the mould.  We had excess solution so that was stored in a plastic container.  You then leave the mould for two days to let the crystals form.  After one day we noticed that the level of the solution had decreased so we added more for our our excess pot and added the crystals that had formed in the pot.

We left the mould for an extra day and then poured the excess solution into a plastic cup to reveal our fully formed Crystal Geode.  My son was really impressed, and it’s now sitting in pride of place in his bedroom.

For £8.99 growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits has been great fun and we’re looking forward at looking at the offer kits in this particular set.  These include Amazing Minerals, Bouncing Planets, Crystal Growing, Molecule Beads, Monster Putty and Magic Tricks.  You can find out about them all on the Thames and Kosmos website.

disclosure:  we were sent the items mentioned in exchange for an honest review


I’ve teamed up with Thames and Kosmos to offer one lucky reader the chance to win a Crystal Geode set worth £8.99.  Complete the Gleam form below for your chance to win.  Good luck!

Terms and conditions:

(Please note that all entries will be checked against comments for validation).

Only the first step of this form is mandatory, all other steps are optional. Only one entry per person is allowed.

This giveaway is for UK residents only.

Once a winner is randomly picked, I will check if the winner has done what was requested and I will contact them, if they do not reply within one week, the prize will be allocated to another person.  The winner’s details will be sent to Playtime PR for Thames and Kosmos, in order that they can arrange delivery.  Please allow 28 days for delivery.

The giveaway will close on 15th May 2019 at midnight.

Don’t forget to visit my Giveaways page for more great prizes on offer!

Crystal Geode set from Thames and Kosmos worth £8.99

139 thoughts on “Growing knowledge with Thames and Kosmos Science Kits – AD sent for review and giveaway

  1. My grandaughter loves experimenting with cooking ingredients with some surprising outcomes.

  2. Any experiments really, the volcano ones makes them laugh though, the last time they did it the ceiling got covered!

  3. My children love making slime, and erupting volcanos with sodium bicarbonate, food colouring and vinegar xx

  4. Anything messy or noisy! We did lots of experiments during last half term, the absolute favourite (adults and children alike) as a crystal growing experiment, so I know the geode kit would be very, very popular.
    Jane Willis

  5. My kids always enjoyed the things that made the most mess, total chaos was the fun thing to do.

  6. All. As there is an interest in science. Curiosity, and sense of adventure in learning and understanding science.

  7. Any experiments, all children are naturally curious when younger and that continues if you feed it by doing age appropriate experiments with them

  8. My grandchildren often get a science lesson from my daughter ( their aunt ). The messier the better! I may have to ban slime. It keeps turning up in the most unexpected places.

  9. At the moment we are obsessed with anything that floes in the air! We just got a rocket kit that we are trying out this weekend so I hope it goes well!

  10. We love doing colourful science experiments as they are fab for sensory for our little one too x

  11. My Daughter loves anything to do with water! So we’ve been using food colouring, freezing things, looking at steam (from a far)

  12. We love egg experiments! We put an egg in vinegar and leave it to soak and the shell comes off leaving it bouncy

  13. l could say ‘winding up Nanny the most’ but they like to experiment with anything messy

  14. My daughter is quite a fan of all sorts of experiments. We are currently awaiting caterpillars to have in our butterfly net to watch their life cycle and over the half term holiday we made our own bath bomb and did volcanic eruptions as well as a slime workshop where we made our own slime!

  15. Creating bubble snakes is a big favourite currently! Also Mentos and cola 🙂

  16. My lot love experiments that they can watch over a few weeks, we particularly liked rearing caterpillars into butterflies we released

  17. He loves every experiment we’ve ever tried! Filtering colours, floating tissue paper “ghosts”, bicarb rockets…

  18. My son Dalton loves experiments which involve anything that makes a noise, explosion or bang

  19. My daughter loves anything to do with liquid/potions (making reactions and as much mess as possible!)

  20. My grandchildren enjoy experimenting with seeds and soil, with the help of Grandad they discover how to successfully grow a variety of plants

  21. My children like experiment with making slime and lately how things grow from a seed

  22. My boys love anything science related – particularly any experiment related to physics!

  23. Our favourite one was getting some carnations to drink water with coloured food dye – the white petals of the flower and stalk took up the colour of the dye!

  24. My kids love our baking experiments as we never know how they turn out! And making a mess is allowed. 😉

  25. My son loves anything to do with science or looking at things through magnifying glasses.

  26. There is one that I showed them once and they insist on repeating. It shows how a plant takes in water and nutrients. You put food colouring in a vase of water and put in a white flower. As the flower “drinks” the water the veins in the stem, leaves and flower change colour. It’s very pretty and whenever we have a bunch of flowers and there is a white one, they always ask to do this. Of course it works with any flower but is most effective with a white one.

  27. My daughter loves anything to do with slime, or in particular – glittery slime!

  28. We home educate and LOVE experiments of many kinds! Favourites are growing alum crystals at the minute!

  29. My daughter recently discovered how sun dial works so she is trying to create one in the garden using her old lightsaber 🙂

  30. My daughters like anything creative, when it come to experiments it usually involves making beauty products x

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