John Adams Ultimate Sparkle Science Review

Reviewed by Lindsay Burton

The John Adams Ultimate Sparkle Science chemistry set guarantees to help your child to explore and understand lots of different scientific concepts which is ideal with it currently being British Science Week! It supports National Curriculum learning and is safe, educational and fun! Contents: Nightlight with colour changing LED (Requires 2 x LR44 batteries – included), room fragrance jar, safety goggles, mystic ball container, Agar-Agar, mystic ball dice and stickers, shower jelly mould, stirrer, measuring scoop, slime powder, aluminium potassium sulphate, biodegradable glitter, blue colouring, pink colouring, plaster of paris, plastic beaker, strawberry fragrance, colour activity guide.

Arrived well packaged in a colourful cardboard box, with it showing on the front and back what you get and what you can experiment with and create. You have virtually everything you need to complete the featured science activities in this set. Ultimate Sparkle Science is clearly aimed at girls, but from a personal perspective, this is almost a refreshing change, having for decades seen countless ‘educational toys’ for girls consisting of nothing more than fashion, cooking, and nursing activities. Inside you get loads of pieces you need for chemistry experiments, a pair of child’s safety goggles and an instruction booklet but seeing as its highly unlikely that anyone will have a laboratory coat hanging around, an apron to protect your child’s clothes might be worth considering, and seeing as a dye is also included, a pair of disposable gloves is recommended (the type that comes with hair dye kits should suffice). I mixed the dye for my daughter and it stained my fingers and although it washed off with soap and warm water, I can’t imagine it would be as easy to get the stains out of clothes.

Some experiments requires extra items to create, but you would have them at home for example the glitter shower jellies requires a small amount of shower gel that you have to supply. The powders are packaged well, ensuring they don’t split or spill in the box. All the plastic pieces have been moulded well, no rough, sharp or unfinished edges. The equipment seems well made and you get quite a lot of pieces in the box. The instruction manual shows you all the experiments which is clear to read and understand, step by step its simple to recreate. My daughter and I love this science set but I would definitely recommend for children over 8 however, adult supervision is advised, and it might be worth noting that the activities can be a little messy, but then again, if they weren’t messy, they wouldn’t be half as much fun. We took a long while looking and carrying out the 10 experiments and I enjoyed seeing how they fit with the STEM Curriculum. It has 10 great experiments and I especially like growing of the Crystal Geode. The Shower Jellies are fun, safe and practical. The fragrance jar shows the importance of aromatic chemicals and how safety also plays a key part. The slime thankfully for all parents is a common medium which easily dissolves and cleans up well even in difficult fabrics and carpets so your kids can have lot of fun with it! The mystic ball is fun and we enjoyed the experiments and learning objectives with that too. Overall very hands on set with safe set of chemicals and a proper set of safety goggles included. Perfect to encourage children to be interested in science, experiment and learn what’s going on around them. Really interesting ideas that have been well thought out and put together. This is a really nice science set, the educational aspects are worth the asking price alone, there are enough activities to keep both children and supervising adults amused for quite some time, and it would make a great gift. Highly recommended.

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RRP: £22.99

For more information and to find stocklists please visit the John Adams website here.