We were recently sent the Science Mad! Chemistry Lab from Trends UK to review. With schools currently closed due to COVID-19 we are currently having to homeschool, so any educational toys were certainly very welcome. Anything that gets the boys excited to be learning is a bonus so this kids chemistry set is ideal for them!

The Science Mad! Chemistry Lab is aimed at children aged 10+ and comes with most of the equipment you need to makeover 80+ science experiments. You will need to buy some additional things such as methylated spirit (for the spirit burner), distilled vinegar and citric acid amongst other some other items to do some of the experiments.

What you get in the Science Made! Chemistry Lab

The Science Mad! Chemistry Lab set comes with the following;

• 10 chemicals
• glass test tubes
• vessels
• a spirit burner
• apparatus
• safety glasses
• a very comprehensive instruction manual

It’s strongly advised that all experiments are done under close adult supervision. Despite this being a chemistry set for kids, an adult is advised to be present to make sure things go smoothly.

The manual starts off by walking you through the steps in how you can set up your Chemistry lab and how to safely use the equipment. There are over 80+ experiments at different levels of complexity. You can choose to work through them in order or simply pick any experiment you like the look of.

Trying our first experiment from the Science Mad! Chemistry Lab

As we were beginners with the kit and struggled to get hold of some of the items needed for the other experiments, we decided to start with the manual’s first few experiments. The first one had us learning about soluble and insoluble substances where we had to recover a dissolved substance (salt) by boiling off the water.

For this, we had to use the spirit burner. However, we didn’t manage to get any methylated spirits for our burner, so we unsuccessfully tried using rubbing alcohol. In the end, we improvised and used a candle.

We then did the same experiment, this time using just boiling water on its own and then distilled water to see if we could see any difference. E recorded all our findings in his own “experiment book.”

Our next experiment was to make some invisible inks using the kid’s science lab. This taught us that some substances could be different colours depending on whether they are hot and cold. The first step was to make invisible ink from a lemon. We moved onto using iron sulphate chemicals and mixing two chemicals (copper sulphate and ammonium chloride). We used cotton buds dipped in the ink substances we made and wrote messages on paper. Once they had dried, we heated the paper with an iron to see our hidden messages.

My eldest has enjoyed the experiments in the kid’s chemistry set we have tried so far. My youngest also had a go at writing his own hidden messages with the invisible ink substances we made. Each experiment clearly lists all the items you need at the start to quickly gauge whether it is an experiment you can do straight away or whether you need to buy some additional bits and pieces.

I was impressed with the Chemistry lab set. Still, I would strongly advise parents to buy some of the additional items ahead of time to avoid any disappointment in not doing certain experiments. The set is very comprehensive, and I can see it lasting a good while. We are looking forward to trying out some other experiments that include paper chromatography, acid and alkalis and chemical reactions.

The Science Mad! Chemistry Lab retails at £29.99 and is available to order online on sites on Smyths and Amazon sites.

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