Forces & Interactions: Middle School Classroom Kit | NGSS-Aligned for Physics & Engineering Classes| Teacher Guide & Lesson Plans | Durable, Timed for Classroom Use, Includes Storage

My grandson needed a good science kit for middle school this year. It arrived at his home and he loves it. Actual science items and not cups and bowls from the kitchen. His other Grandmother said it is really working out well.

I generally love Thames and Kosovo’s products. This is a classroom physics kit. There are enough pieces to build several cars at once, but some experiments can only be done one at a time. For me that is fine since I am using this with homeschooling several kids, but for a small classroom, I can see students wanting to make their own. I am also not sure there are enough pieces to build more than one ramp. The snap pieces can be hard to remove especially for smaller finger, there is one connector puller included. For bigger groups of students I would have liked more of the pullers (looks a bit like the Lego splitter tool) You will need to provide weights for one experiment and batteries for the power module. I used slightly stronger nylon cord for my bucket pulls. It comes with magnets, wires, cord, nails, a cheep compass, and paper clips. Most of the odds and ends I just used my own and left the nails etc in the bucket. There is a nice top divided tray to store the tinier pieces, and the bottom bin I left filled with the large pieces. The top of the storage box is dimpled to allow connecting the (not Lego) plastic building blocks to it. My kids had fun and easily figured out how to build onto any experiment we tried. My one and biggest complaint with the kit is the magnet and iron filing board. None of the magnets work. They appear to have either been super heated or smacked around enough to unalign or weaken the magnet. I have a collection of bar magnets and rare earth magnets so I replaced the included magnets with my own. Most science teachers I know have collections of magnets so overall not a big issue. The clear iron filing board designed to show magnetic fields was a bust though. It’s not that the filings didn’t align, but that there were so few filings inside to show anything to begin with. I have a board I bought from a science teaching supply store and it has enough filings to demonstrate the magnetic field. This one was meh at best. Because it does allow for multiple fun interactive classroom experiments I am rating this four stars. The spiral teaching book was great with Detailed instructions for building, and alignment guides (this assumes a knowledge of the material on the teacher’s part). The plastic technic like pieces were easy to use and fun for the kids. It was in the magnetism and wires and accessories that fell short of expectation. My Dad was a physicist (and MD) and I have a background in Physics as well, I had no trouble explaining what was going on to my kids, but this does not have answers to the questions because it assumes teacher knows answers, and how to relate NGSS Standards. Booklet includes lesson plan with target student age, time to teach, and any any materials needed. It is a great classroom kit, or group science instruction kit. Just keep in mind it’s target is classroom supplementary instruction, not home so kit is not designed to be a done by a kid on their own following a visually interesting book. (The spiral is pretty standard for teacher lesson books)

Great resource to use in my classroom!

We opted to have our kids do the school's online school this year so they would not be impacted by school closures and reopening, and to limit our possible exposure due to health concerns. The thing we noticed first was the lack of physical things for the kids - almost all their learning is on the computer screen. I ordered this to add an element of physical learning, as well as to create a family science learning activity for the entire family. It has been great! My husband and I work together with both boys (ages 10 and 13). We go through the lesson and talk about the science principles, talk through what we expect to happen, build together, then test the theories and compare to what we thought would happen. It makes learning very hands on and inclusive and is quite fun. This set is well thought out. The pieces fit snugly together - they are not going to fall apart, and you will need the included tool to help pull pieces apart. The tool kit itself is large, and the box it comes in is very handy to store things in. We organized the bags things came in to keep similar items together. The large pieces are in the bottom section, with the smaller pieces in the included storage tray. Some of the concepts and lessons build on the one before it. This is great - it takes a basic science theory and helps add another layer. When reading the material, they talk about small groups of about 4 kids per kit, and this seems about right. With the four of us working together, and letting the two kids do most of the work, there is a bit of sitting around waiting for something to be put together, but it works out pretty well. This kit is great for home learning as well as classroom learning.