Learning Resources Primary Science Lab Set Review

Reviewed by Lynsey Miller

This child’s science kit is super cute. It has a load of little lab equipment especially for young children that are perfectly sized, durable and easily cleaned. Just playing with the equipment was fun for my four year old. There is one large and two small test tubes with lids and stands, a dropper, beaker, flask, funnel, tweezers magnifying glass, glasses and 10 activity cards. It really does feel like a little science lab when all set up. My only critique would be that the tweezers are too big and clumsy and difficult to use – especially for my daughter. I was having to do must of the tweezing.
The set is a fantastic way to introduce your child to the world of science through play. The activity cards give you some very simple experiments you can carry out with everyday household things. Which is great for getting you started and giving parents some ideas. The cards tell you what equipment you need in pictures, so my daughter was able to lay aside what she needed by herself. It talked you through what to do and told you what to expect. However, it would be great if the cards went into more detail of the reasons as to why things happened. Like most children my daughter was very inquisitive and kept asking “why does it do that Mummy”. And in the spirit of science I did not want to give my usual parent response when unsure of “it just does” so instead like many households we asked Alexa which was a bit of a hit or miss and confusing to be honest.

Regardless though my daughter has had lots of fun with the set over the last few days. She really enjoyed carrying out the experiments and has had a great time playing with the magnifying glass. She also keeps asking to put things in the test tubes to do science.

The suggested age is for 3 to 7. However, I think that it is definitely more for the younger end of this age bracket. The activity cards provided are very basic experiments so I would suspect that children aged 6 and 7 might be slightly too old to keep interested or gain much from it. But you could continue to use some of the equipment for more advanced experiments as your child gets older. And with younger children you could continue to do many of the activity cards over again with different ingredients.
The set retails at £29 and is widely stocked on many online shops for slightly less. Its not overly expensive and I would say worth the money if your child is between 3 and 5. I would probably look into whether I could get a more advance set for older children or at least more advanced experiments/activities as the equipment is great for any age.

Overall, I would give the set 3.5 stars out of 5 and would recommend it to parents as a great way to make education a little more fun with your child at a fairly reasonable price.

Rating: 3.5/5

RRP: £29.00

This product can be purchased from Learning Resources here.