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Amazon STEM Toy Club Review, Ages 5 to 7: Learning Resources Beaker Creatures Deluxe Reactor Lab

Brandi D.
ByBrandi D.Jun 3, 2019 | 7 comments

Amazon STEM Club Toy Subscription
5 overall rating
3 Ratings | 0 Reviews

Amazon has launched a STEM Club Toy subscription box! This monthly kid's subscription delivers "handpicked, high-quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math toys" to your door for $19.99/month.

This subscription looks like any other shipment from Amazon, with no exterior branding on the box or special insert.

There are 3 age range options:

  • 3-4-year-olds (counting, building, and cause and effect)
  • 5-7 year-olds (hands-on experiments and explorations of electricity, earth science, and simple math)
  • 8-13-year-olds (more complex projects and experiments based on principals of physics, chemistry, and engineering)

This is a review of the 5 to 7-year-old age range Amazon STEM Club, $19.99/month.

My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

About This Educational Subscription Box for Kids

The Subscription Box: Amazon STEM Toy Club

The Cost: $19.99 per month

The Products: Each month you will receive a different, age-appropriate STEM toy.

Ships to: U.S. (free shipping)

May’s Toy: Learning Resources Beaker Creatures Deluxe Reactor Lab

 

Learning Resources Beaker Creatures Deluxe Reactor Lab - Retail Value $32.99 (found here for $25.39)

Our toy this month is one that we are slightly familiar with having received a much smaller beaker creature set before so the kids were really excited for this bigger set!

This set has 21 pieces and includes everything you need to perform several different science experiments.

We received four of these reactor pods that each contain a mystery beaker creature for them to uncover.

 

They included an easy to follow instructions sheet that had several more science experiments that we could perform using our set. Some of these included making alien slime or a bubbling volcano. I love that we can use this for more than just hatching our creatures!

 

While we only received four beaker creatures in this set, there are a total of 35 different beaker creatures that we can collect by purchasing separately. They actually have a lot of different accessories that can go along with this kit like this cute lab coat or even a carrying case for our kit.

 

They also included these great classification cards that we can use to identify our beaker creatures along with these mini posters that have some educational trivia questions on the back.

 

The main piece to our lab is this blue base with two hoses running through it for our water to flow.

 

The first step in setting up was to add the pieces to our base including this main chamber. Our chamber simply snapped into place easily once I slid the orange ring down to the bottom.

 

We also received these two syringes with a gray case around them that allows them to snap into our base as well.

 

I connected the hose at the bottom to our main chamber and then made sure that all of the tubing on the top of our base was distributed evenly so that the water would flow through.

 

They provided a pair of tongs and a stirring stick for us to use. I unwrapped our first pod and my daughter placed it into the reactor chamber for us.

 

We received two plastic beakers that I filled with water and from there we filled up our syringes before sliding them back into their gray cases. There was a little notch that we could slide them into to ensure that our syringes were locked into place.

 

Once our syringes were locked into place, we pushed them down and the water flowed through the tubes into our chamber and caused our pod (similar to a bath bomb) to bubble up. It only dripped down a little this first time, but in case it spilled more, we had our base set in the plastic tray it was packaged in.

 

Our first creature was a bit stubborn so we had to give him a stir and since we are impatient, we took him out with a little bit of mess on him still. He came enclosed in a plastic toy case similar to the ones you find in the machines at grocery stores so he was not messy at all and came out clean once we removed him from the case.

 

My dinosaur-loving son was thrilled to find that our first creature was classified as a "minisaur" and I had him use the classification cards to find him and determine what his name was. This first creature is Clomp.

 

We repeated the process for each of our beaker creature pods and I swear each time they got messier and exploded more! Luckily it was mostly contained within the tray so it was an easy fix. In between creatures I simply dumped out the water and gave it a quick rinse before moving on to our next creature.

 

My daughter classified our next creature as one of the "astrolytes" named Orbit.

 

Next up we had the "oceanite" named Purtle.

 

Our final beaker creature was Drifton who is a "frostonian" which means we received one creature from each of the four different "lands" that the creatures come from.

In our booklet they gave us a lot of great ideas for different ways to play with our set, one of them was to add some food coloring to our water and see how it reacted with our pods, but in our eagerness, we didn't get to that one! Instead, we did try to make our own little whirlpool by adding our creatures to the chamber and plunging in water so quickly that it spun our creatures all around. They had fun doing this and I know they'll be excited to do some of the other fun activities they included as well!

Verdict: This was another hit from Amazon’s STEM Toy Club this month! We had so much fun using this kit and it was so simple for them to use. I love that we can do more experiments using this and that it was relatively easy to clean up afterward. I can see us adding onto this set as gift ideas for the kids since they enjoyed it so much. While the retail value isn't too much higher than the $19.99 cost of this subscription this month at $25.52, I still think it was a great toy and we were all happy with what we received! This subscription really is a lot of fun and it definitely varies from month to month so it is truly a surprise subscription!

To Wrap Up:

Can you still get this box: Based on feedback from other subscribers, we've learned that you might receive any of the toys featured in previous reviews as your first box for this subscription– not all subscribers receive the same toy each month.

Value Breakdown: The cost of the subscription was $19.99 and we received a toy valued at $32.99. That’s a savings of $13.00 on this toy.

If you like this box, you might also like: Tinker Crate (ages 9+), Groovy Lab in a Box (ages 8+), Bitsbox (ages 6-12)

Check out all of our Amazon STEM Toy Club reviews, our best boxes for kids, more educational and STEM subscriptions for kids, and all Amazon subscription boxes in our subscription box directory!

Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!

What do you think of this month's toy from the Amazon STEM Club Toy subscription box

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Brandi D.
Brandi D.

I am a homeschooling mom to 4 kids; 1 girl and 3 boys. While I have been reviewing boxes since 2018 and I love the luxury of trying new products, I'm also balancing it out by dabbling in a little bit of homesteading, too. We now have 4 chickens and a rabbit and my sourdough starter is going strong! I love learning about new brands and sharing the great things I find with others in hopes that they find something new to love or to fit their needs!


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7 comments

marie

The kids must have been totally enamored by this since they are totally ignoring the boxes of brownie mix on the counter 😉

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Brandi D.

Haha yes! It was the weekend of a zillion cookouts and brownies are always my go to dish! 😂

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Catherine

I agree! This has nothing to do with STEM and is just a toy. There is zero educational value here.

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Tat

Would someone explain to me what this has to do with science?

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amber

Sure, I can point out a few things for ya. Keep in mind, this activity is for 5-7 year olds, so I’m not sure how high-tech you expect these things to be.

First, they have a little lab set up where they can learn some of the basic names of the tools a scientist might use.

Second, they get to watch a chemical reaction occur when the pods are injected with water. Tell me you never got excited when you added vinegar to baking soda and food coloring to make a volcano.

Third, they are using classification cards to identify what creature they have uncovered. Have you ever used a field guide to identify a bird, tree, rock etc?

This is all science.

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Brandi D.

Thanks for the thorough breakdown, Amber! 🙂

Noelle

Good clarification…I’m all for making learning fun.