Review ~ STEM Fun with Sea Monkeys and Blue Crystal Growing

We have been sent these products to review, all thoughts, images and opinions are our own!

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We've been selected to be Bandai Ambassors here at the Cupcake Kitney house and have really enjoyed experimenting with some of their products. 

First we tried out the The Original Sea Monkey Ocean Zoo kit (Age 4+). We are looking at a mix of topics in science and one of them is environments and eco systems. This is a fun, easy and simple way to explore this topic.





Everything is listed in easy pictures on the paper insert and there is also a detailed leaflet included in the tank. We used bottled water from the shops and used the water purifier satchet as instructed which had to sit for a day to work. 

The next day we gave the water a stir and added in our second sachet: Sea Monkey eggs! We left our eggs for 5 days, stirring the water gently every day and on day 5 we had some Sea Monkeys! Now we feed them everyday using the small spoon provided. I'll try to share some updates, Will and I can't wait to see them grow and the others are excited too!

Next we focused on our second STEM experiment: growing our own crystal with National Geographic's Blue Crystal growing lab. (Age 8+)


This experiment will take a bit more time to see results and it takes a little longer to set up but we both had fun. 
The set contains all the essentials and all we needed to do was follow the instructions carefully, use boiling water from our kettle and find our own pots for mixing and growing our crystal in.


The aim of this project is to grow your own crystal using a seed crystal and the growing powder provided. We will get to document the water change as it starts to evaporate and we will get to keep an eye on just how big our crystal will get.

Using the instructions; we poured boiling water into an old take away tub, added the growing crystal powder which turned the water blue (very cool) and stirred our mix gently making sure it was all dissolved.

Will stirring the mix

We found a pot for keeping skewers and thought that might be a good container so as the responsible adult (no laughing at the back) I took the solution outside to pour it into the container. Please be careful, the water is obviously very hot.

We let the water cool down as instructed for 20 minutes before Will dropped the seed crystal into the solution, making sure it was central in the pot.

To add to our experiment we chose to put a lid on our crystal for 24 hours. Apparently some crystal growers do this and find they have bigger crystals as a result. Watch this space! 

Our crystal on day 1

These two experiments have been really fun to do. With the Sea Monkeys we have had results in just a few days which is great for the children. The crystal won't be fully ready for at least 2 weeks but there will be a lot of change going on in the pot that will be really exciting to keep an eye on!

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The Blue Crystal Growing Lab from National Geographic costs £14.99 currently on Amazon and The Original Sea Monkeys Ocean-Zoo costs around £9.99 at Argos, both are also available from all good toy stores. For more information on either of these products you can visit Bandai.co.uk

3 comments:

  1. We have had Sea Monkeys in the past and they are fascinating and can last for ages. We had them for months.
    These look like great sets x

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  2. That looks like fun. Some great ideas for parents entertaining the kids this summer. I don't have little ones around; but think this would be a great way to keep the kids engaged.

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  3. I used to have Sea monkeys, i loved them! You're full of so many ideas for fun learning! x

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