Learning Resources Primary Science Colour Mixing Glasses And Learning Resources Primary Shapes Review

Reviewed by H Chan

I was lucky enough to have the chance to review some lovely educational resources. As a teacher and mother of three I love anything with a high playable factor and will also teach the kids something. Learning Resources make some fantastic educational toys which are both fabulous quality and well priced.

I was sent some Colour mixing glasses, and some primary shapes stencils. They arrived very well packaged in a huge box so there were no worries about them becoming lost in the post, although a little less packaging might have worked just as well.

Primary Science Colour Mixing Glasses

In the packet you receive a pair of blue, plastic, foldable glasses with two slots on each side for the interchangeable lenses. It comes with two clear, two yellow, two red and two blue lenses which can be added easily and mix-matched. Lenses are robust, thick and made of plastic with a little tab to lift them in and out of the frame.  These glasses are really good for teaching primary colours and colour mixing, also for explaining how things look different colours as you use different colour lenses. I found these to be a lovely and easy to use resource for young children. Both my six and nine year old loved them.

They are very sturdy, although a little on the large size for small heads. They fit my head perfectly but on my littles they slipped off their faces when they looked down, when holding their heads steady though they stayed put. My six year old loved them. After he had figured out what they were for they became spy glasses and used to decipher secret codes. I loved that he could use them in roll play and that they were a learning resource as well.  I feel these would not only be a great resource for classrooms and home school, but would also make great stocking fillers for those who love something a little different. They’re both educational and fun to play with.

Apart from them being a little big, the only other downside is that once the packaging has been opened, there is no where to store the lenses and I have more than once had to retrieve them from underneath my sofa because they have been dropped. A little case for the lenses would be lovely, and stop the plastic lenses from becoming damaged.

Rating: I give these a 4 out of 5 stars. They are great for teaching purposes but without means of storage they can be lost easily and their size means that you cant look down, which when trying to pick up new lenses isn’t easy and little ones don’t always remember to take them off when swapping lenses.

You can find them on the Learning Resources website here at a price of £9.

Primary Shapes Stencils
These are handy, very sturdy, little stencils. Made from plastic and in primary colours. These stencils are a really good size for small hands and stand up to being dropped a lot by my son. Simply hold the plastic stencil in place, and use a pen or a pencil to draw the shape by leaning on the edges of the cut out area.

In the bag, you will find five stencils. Rectangles, squares, triangles, circles and hexagons. Each cut out shape is a different size which helps to teach children motor skills, and help them with their math skills early on. Recognising and being able to draw shapes forms a good foundation for many subjects and these are great to have in the house. One thing that I particularly liked about these was that each stencil is in the shape of the cut out shapes. Meaning the stencil for circles, was a circle and could be used as a stencil itself! The square, a square and so forth.

I also found they were great for my daughter, who has a muscle wasting disease meaning that her hands can be stiff or she struggles to draw certain things. These stencils were such a big help for her and we even used them with her angles homework! They’re very versatile for what they are as they don’t look like much in the bag when they arrive, but can be used for so many different things.

My son used them in his artwork and was very happy that he could draw uniform squares without having to struggle with a rule and a pencil.

Rating: I give these 5 out of 5 stars. They are very good value for money a great size for little hands and very usable.

You can find them on the Learning Resources website here for only £7.50 a pack.