Science Mad! Crystal Growing Lab Review

Reviewed by Deborah Banasko

I think every adult remembers those high school lab experiments where you grew blue and white crystals (and secretly wanted to steal them and take them home). I don’t think my children quite appreciated the nostalgia of this review for me, but they were just as excited to open it.

This product is targeted at ages 10 and above, so my 8 and 4 year-old were spectators whilst my 11 year-old and I carried out the experiments. Adult supervision is necessary particularly if your child is at the younger end of the target age. The general idea of this product is for children to grow their own crystals and carry out 17 related experiments.

The Science Mad! Crystal Growing Lab has a really fun box, although I did think that the crystals shown looked quite ambitious compared to the mess I made in Science class all those years ago!

Inside the box are the chemicals required, food colouring, various apparatus (petri dishes, blister moulds, 2 measuring cups, stirrers, a dropper, granite seed rocks, thread, small spoon, pens, pots, tweezers and various pre-cut paper shapes), a results table to encourage learning and understanding, a display stand for your crystals and an instruction booklet. I was a little disappointed not to see any safety goggles as kids do love these purely for the drama!

As you tend to find with these science kits you will require some basic household items such as a jam jar, paper clip etc. However, I was a little puzzled to discover that I would need to provide Plaster of Paris and Epsom Salts; not something we have lying around the house! This was for 3 of the experiments so it wasn’t a huge issue if you didn’t have these items as you could still grow the crystals, but I think in the interests of planning in advance (should this be a Christmas present), this information would be more useful if clearly stated in bold on the front of the box rather than in small writing on the back.

In terms of quality, I was impressed overall considering the price. The bottles of chemicals were clearly labelled with different coloured stickers and had a “science lab” feel about them. Whilst the moulds and display stand were made of the flimsy plastic which you find in toy packaging, the measuring cups and petri dishes were really solid and good quality. I did appreciate that the measuring cups displayed mililitres (smaller cup) and cubic-centimeters and fluid ounces (larger cup) in order to introduce different measurements of capacity, although continuing mililitres with the larger cup may have been less confusing and helped children to understand metric measurements better. The instructions do state that 1cc is equal to 1ml, but this could be easily missed or confused.

This is a STEM product, so your children learn whilst they have fun making crystals of different shapes and colours. The instruction booklet explains in detail how crystals were formed during the Earths creation and how crystal shapes are classified, which my Science loving daughter loved to read about, and this led onto some further reading online which is always a bonus.

The instruction booklet is large and glossy, and I loved the detailed descriptions of how each piece of apparatus is used. The step-by-step instructions are very clear, and the diagrams really useful.

I especially liked the results table as it encourages the good practice in Science that is adopted in high school and aids learning. Something to bear in mind with this set is that, like experiments in school and indeed the real world, there can be an element of waiting. You may need to wait 15-30 minutes before you can continue to a next step, and several hours or days to monitor the results. Prepare your child for the fact that crystals take time and that it is part of the excitement.

Our favourites were the moulded crystals, where coloured crystals were set into the shape of a heart, star, fish and flower. Our display stand looked pretty that day!

Also making a crystal tree was pretty cool and a winner for Christmas day should you be gifting this to a child or asking Santa to deliver it. Water-colour pens are used to colour in the paper tree, which is placed into your crystal solution, and this creates the colour as the crystals grow. The crystals form after just a few hours and the end result does look really lovely. The crystal rainbow follows the same idea too. My kids were so excited to watch the crystals grow and note their findings, and were really engaged with the experiments.

There is a lot contained in this set for your money, and plenty of experiments to carry out so I feel that £19.99 is a good price-point for the hours of fun created by this set. In terms of the recommended age of 10 years I would absolutely agree due to the level of understanding and skill needed in handling the equipment.

This is a fantastic Christmas present for kids in that “difficult age” bracket so that they have something fun to do on Christmas day. It’s a great way to encourage a love of Science and learning.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

RRP: £19.99

You can purchase the Science Mad! Crystal Growing Lab from Smyths Toys here.