This month’s Letterbox Lab is called Your Place in Space! My lovely helper is my daughter, Little C, who is seven. I was sent an Explore Box, which is perfectly designed for her age group.
It costs £8 + £ p+p. More subscription details are at the end of the review.
The box fits right through the mailbox!
The first activity, Orbital, was simple, requiring just a balloon and a metal nut.
Crazy noise!
Next was It’s Alive! Shades of Dr Frankenstein perhaps?
We mixed yeast, sugar, and water in the plastic bag and then squidged it all together.
The warmest place we could find to leave it was the radiator!
This one needed to be left for a little while, so we got on with the other two experiments while we waited. But I’ll show you the results here. Now, anyone who’s familiar with making bread might be able to guess what happened after about an hour…
It bubbled and expanded! The idea of this was to show that life (in this case the yeast) produces waste (the bubbles of CO2 gas). In space, scientists look for these waste products to indicate possible signs of life.
The next experiment, Where No One Has Bean Before, was another longer-range one.
In this one three beans were planted pointing in different directions to see which way the roots and shoots grew. The idea here is that the roots always follow the force of gravity, so no matter which was they are planted, the roots should always grow downwards.
As they obviously haven’t started growing yet I’ll have to keep you updated on this one!
(Eagle-eyed readers might notice we used the little glass from the December Bokksu!)
On to the final experiment.
You Are Here came with all kinds of interesting bits and pieces, and used the box itself!
Cutting cardboard is quite difficult. Little C had a good go at it, but I ended up doing most of the cutting out.
Lots of measuring, cutting, and sticking!
So, this is the first part. I wonder what it will be?
More cutting and sticking, plus adding these plastic cogs.
Starting to take shape!
Now to add an elastic band.
Finally, some finishing touches. Green and blue paint powder was included with the box, but we decided to use our own acrylic paints. No mixing, and they could be dried very easily with a hairdryer!
Can you guess what this is supposed to be?
Now can you guess?
Let’s see it in action!
Isn’t that amazing? An orrery, a proper working model of the movement of the Earth and Moon around the Sun!
I have to say that the orrery was the best thing about this box. It worked beautifully, and even though it required quite a lot of assistance to make, the finished result was absolutely spectacular. Whoever designed this deserves a medal!
Orbital was fun, and it made a very satisfying noise, but it was a little difficult to connect the principle with the result. (Also the balloon popped, which is why it’s not in the final picture!)
We’re looking forward to seeing the results of Where No One Has Bean Before. The booklet does tell us what’s supposed to happen, but it will be interesting to see proof!
It’s Alive was simple but very effective, not to mention delightfully revolting!
In Letterbox Lab #6, there was another mechanical activity, a very impressive grabbing arm. But You Are Here was even more ingenious. Little C was aware of the orbiting principle, but it’s so much better to be able to see it in action! And the process of making it, which required a great deal of concentration, was very good for practicing perseverance.
Letterbox Lab is such a terrific bunch of activities to do every month! They are a wonderful creative (and often happily messy!) way to introduce young children to scientific principles.
Little C always has a splendid time with Letterbox Lab. (She is also very much looking forward to turning eight and graduating to the Investigate Box!) This month the Orrery was the runaway favourite! Little C worked incredibly hard at figuring out how to put it all together, and was delighted to see how well her model worked. I was incredibly impressed myself, it’s amazing what some cardboard, bits of plastic, and remarkable design can create!
Another terrific afternoon and perfect half term fun with Letterbox Lab!
(PS Next time can we have a model of the Dagobah system?!)
Take a look at other Letterbox Lab reviews here!
Letterbox Lab provide innovative children’s science kits as subscription boxes.
The Explore Box (£8 + £2 postage) is for kids aged 6+ and contains a least an hour’s worth of fun science.
The Investigate Box (£22 + £2 postage) for kids aged 8+ has more experiments and more items of collectible lab equipment with enough to keep a junior scientist busy for 3 or 4 hours.
Both kits have full-colour illustrated instructions and online videos to make it easy to do all the experiments.
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A different version of this review was first published on allsubscriptionboxes.co.uk.
