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This is a Snap Circuits SC-300 review. The toy, manufactured by Elenco Electronics is the ideal toy for any parents wishing to introduce science and electronics to their child. While I do think that this toy is probably better suited for boys, my two daughters have really enjoyed the whole experience, and are clearly much better at understanding how electricity works. I found out about this toy when I was looking around on amazon for educational toys for my daughter’s birthday. This toy was ranked very highly and had a position inside the top 20 best selling toys last time I looked, but seeing as the list changes every day this ranking is very fluid.

This toy has won quite a few awards including the National Parenting Center – Seal of Approval, The Dr. Toy 100 Best Children’s products and the Dr. Toy Best Educational products award. Whether you think that this toy is really worth buying just on the fact that it comes with these awards is up to you, I personally made sure to check the customer reviews, both good and bad before I actually bought it.

The recommended age for this toy is 8 years and above, although I definitely think that there is room for this toy to be played with by children under that age. My younger daughter was turning 7 years old when we got this, and she was already at the stage where she was able to put together some of the basic circuits. One great thing about this toy is the fact that it allows kids to build on the things they have learned in previous projects. The ordering of the projects is in difficulty order, they will begin by putting together simple things like an electric light and switch project which allows shows them how electricity is turned on and off with a switch. Then later they can build things like a fire fan symphony and a water detection alarm.

The box comes with the following parts. It of course has the plastic “snap-grid”, 32 electric components and 2 project manuals. The number of projects listed with the product is 305, but you will find that there are actually only somewhere in the vicinity of 130 – 140 “base” projects, and the rest of the projects that you can do are “extensions” of the base projects.

Overall, I would have to say that this buying this toy has been an excellent experience and the amount of time that my kids have spent experimenting and playing with this toy, more than justifies the price. Thanks very much for reading this review of the Snap Circuits SC300 set.

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If you have been looking for a present for your children that will get them a little more in touch with nature then this is possibly one of the best toys that you can get for your child. The Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden is actually a “kit” or “set” if you like where you can actually grow your own butterflies. Your children can watch these little caterpillar larvae go through the caterpillar, then the chrysalis and finally the butterfly stage of its life.

I have to be honest here and even though I was hoping that this toy would be as interesting to my children as it would be to me, and really get them interested in science and nature, I did initially have rather low expectations. I am very happy to let you all know however that this toy lived up to my expectations and more. My kids nagged me almost every day before wanting to me come look at the caterpillar to see how it had changed.

The process gets even more interesting when the caterpillar begins transforming into the chrysalis. Once it has begun transforming you can then safely transfer the chrysalis into the cylindrical mesh chamber where it will eventually transform into a “painted lady butterfly”. The process takes anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks from the larvae arriving to it becoming a butterfly. It takes about 7-10 days in the caterpillar form and then a further 7-10 days in the chrysalis form.

Once the butterflies hatch from their chrysalis (apparently the manufacturer “guarantees” that at least 3 of the 5 larvae that you receive will successfully hatch into a butterfly. There is one thing that irks me a little about this Butterfly Garden and that is the fact that you don’t actually get any larvae with the initial set that you buy. When you buy the set, you receive a coupon to send off for your caterpillar larvae. While it does annoy me that the set is seemingly not complete, I have to remember that out local store themselves cannot stock the caterpillars and so this is the only way to know when a customer is ready for their caterpillar. The eggs that the caterpillar larvae hatch from are kept in a butterfly nursery. The larvae come in a special container and with enough caterpillar food for the journey.

Thanks very much for taking the time to read my review of this Insect Lore Live Butterly Garden. I hope that you can see what a present idea this toy is now.

Buy Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden Now From Amazon.com

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