Letterbox Lab science kits for kids are a fantastic way to play and learn about science and STEM-based themes in your own home!
This time we’re working thought our 5th Investigate Box, which is for kids aged 8 and upwards.
As you work through the series you accumulate an impressive collection of apparatus. With the exception of things like water and bowls, the kits include all the equipment you need to perform the experiments.
It’s all neatly packed into the box, which does indeed fit through the letterbox!
The theme of this box is Let it Glow.
There are nine experiments and activities in this kit. I’m going to show you a few examples, and some seriously impressive results!
I bet your child has seen with one of these! It’s a secret message pen, otherwise known as a UV ink pen and torch.
While these pens are great fun to play with, this activity is great for understanding how they actually work, and to get kids to experiment with the UV torch itself.
There’s another experiment that involves using sun-cream on UV sensitive paper, so kids can observe the blocking effect of the sun-cream.
The sun-cream reflects the light back as purple.
Have you heard of sun paper? It’s paper that reacts with light, and this clever stuff is used to create simple pictures.
The blue paper fades when exposed to light, so you can make all kinds of fun shapes on it.
Even better, you just use water to ‘fix’ the picture so it doesn’t fade further, and there you have a basic photograph!
You can challenge kids to find things with interesting shapes to create the picture, or perhaps they could even cut out pieces of card and create their own! There’s lots of opportunity for creativity here.
I didn’t manage to capture the Photon Beam of Destruction as it happened all too fast!
You’re probably familiar with the sun and magnifying glass trick. This is used to burst a black balloon using just the sun, and let me tell you, it happens REALLY quickly!
It’s very effective but rather startling.
There is also instructions for further experimentation, with a clear balloon included, and also to find out what might happen with other colours.
The Fast and the Luminous is a great experiment for making predictions.
It involves observing the effect of putting glowsticks (who doesn’t love those?) into hot, tepid, and cold water.
Can you see a difference in the glowsticks here?
Oh, and they are sitting in a dark den. The box contains instructions and black card to make one with your Letterbox Lab box if you don’t have a handy dark room! The test tube stand was in last month’s box.
Another nice item in this box is these UV Beads with a thread to make a bracelet or keychain.
They look just like plain white beads, right?
This is what they look like when they’re exposed to UV light, either using the UV torch or sunlight!
Pretty colours, huh?
OK, I’ve saved the best one for last.
Glow with the Flow is an experiment testing how different liquids glow under the UV torch.
There’s glow liquid, glow powder, and plain water.
You can use you dark den for this, but we actually did it in Little C’s room as she has blackout blinds.
See how they glow? The powder (on the left) doesn’t need the UV light at all.
You can also create an amazing effect with the glow liquid and the UV torch.
If you hold it at the correct angle, the light actually bounces off the sides of the test tube, in a sort of corkscrew shape.
You learn from the booklet that this is how fiber optic cables work.
It took a little bit of fiddling, but it looks incredible when it works! (You also can’t get the full effect in a picture. Trust me, it’s amazing.)
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This Let it Glow Letterbox Lab box does a lovely job of using familiar childhood toys to explore science.
Children love writing messages with spy pens, so learning how they work is an extra bonus.
Hands-on experience is a very effective way for children to learn, and Letterbox Lab experiments allow kids to be physically involved in their scientific activities.
The booklets themselves are well illustrated, and scientific explanations are very clear.
The activities all support the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum.
Homeschooling parents will find this a wonderful addition to science learning at home.
Letterbox Lab enhances children’s learning and appreciation of STEM subjects, promotes the scientific process, and fosters observation, ingenuity, and curiosity!
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Letterbox Lab provide innovative children’s science kits as subscription boxes. We were sent this kit at no charge, and all opinions are our own.
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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What a fantastic activity box! That suncream experiment would be such an easy way to teach kids the importance of protecting their skin!
Thank you for commenting lovely! Isn’t it amazing? A really clever idea, suncream is so important. And of course every kid loves a secret message pen 😍