Saturday, April 25, 2020

SUPER Science Experiments: At Home: Try these in the kitchen, bathroom, and all over your home!

SUPER Science Experiments: At Home is a new STEAM activity guide for young readers (and their resource adults/caregivers) by Elizabeth Snoke Harris. Released 14th April 2020 by Quarto on their MoonDance Press imprint, it's 64 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

Everyone needs fun learning ideas for youngsters (and adults) in these bizarre days. Science and learning have always been my go-to stress and boredom busters whenever I have to stay home and can't go out. This collection is simple, full of easy to follow experiments and activities, and uses easy to find ingredients which most readers already have available around the house.

There are a number of activities which can be done by kids themselves without supervision. All safety information and tips are clearly delineated in the text. The tutorials themselves are accessible and written simply in easy to understand language. They're varied in scope and concepts including learning in physics, chemistry, cell biology (with a truly spiffy DNA isolation exercise), and interdisciplinary experiments.

The illustrations are simple and well done. They don't detract from the experiments. Each of the exercises has a list of ingredients, step by step instructions, and a "What's Happening" explanation of the relevant concepts at the end of each one. I didn't count how many were included in this book, but there must be close to 100. The tutorial measurements are given in American standard measures (pounds, cups, and so forth). There is also a very abbreviated index at the back of the book. It should be noted that these are *simple* experiments, and that some of them use quite a lot of easily sourced materials (several pounds of salt for one exercise).

This would make a super book for science homeschooling units or even online school instruction sessions.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.


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