Thames & Kosmos 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.

This is a good set between Lego and K’nex in building difficulty. Middle school students will have no issue (upper elementary kids with some patience will do fine with the building part as well). The pieces are sturdy and fairly easy to put together. The activities are Visualizing Forces (a basic intro to vectors) Newtons 2nd law Collisions (one moving one stationary) Collision 2 moving cars Newton’s 3rd law Magnetic Fields Electric Fields Electromagnetic Forces And a challenge thing about applications of electromagnets There is a page with NGSS alignments for teachers. You can download digital version of the lesson plans via QR code in the book. The concepts are at upper middle school level. BTW, check out phyphox app online, great for students to use their phones to take measurements. This is listed as for up to 4 students, and I think that is a fair assessment. If you are planning on using this for homeschool, you yourself need at least some basic physics knowledge so you can explain the concepts (or you will need to go to another source). The book itself is not that detailed. The AA batteries needed for E&M are not provided. In comparison to the other two standard building systems (outlined below) this is a nice kit with sturdy construction suited to the middle school level. Docking a star for cost. This needs to come it around 100 dollars for the value for the cost. I have used both Lego educational products and K’nex in my science and math classrooms. My general preference is for K’nex for middle school and up and Lego for elementary school (with the exception of the MindStorms Lego sets which are excellent for computer programing at the high school level). This is actually based on the physical difficulty of assembling K’nex vs Lego, which is probably why K’nex is marketed as age 10 and up. K’nex takes more physical force and dexterity to assemble, but the type, size and physical integrity of the of structures are much better with K’nex. One can build very large structures with K’nex (such as meter long bridges, meter high roller coasters and so on) that are precluded by the weight of the bricks for Lego. K’nex lends itself far better to engineering and physics problems as it is much sturdier (although not a sturdy as Erector sets!) and one can build cars and structures that will hold together throughout testing. For physics and engineering projects (motion, machines, conservation of energy, structure building) K’nex is clearly better than Lego. I also use K’nex in my math classes when I need to show 3D structure. As a teacher you can register on the K’nex education site and receive access to lesson plans which are useful.

This is a set for up to 4 kids. It's all guided activities, not intended a toy or building set, with lesson plan and objectives for an adult/teacher to supervise. Can also be adapted for homeschoolers. It assumes you already have some materials in your science room (ie, one activity requests rare earth magnets, not included). It also assumes a teacher who has a science background. The age range says middle school, and most middle schoolers could probably do the activities on their own. I remember doing some of these experiments and concepts in high school. However, with proper supervision, you could adapt this for much younger kids, even age 7 or 8. They might not catch all the higher concepts, it's all about your ability to adapt. In a school setting, depending on your own teaching style, curriculum, and objectives, you could spend several days before and after each activity, exploring the concepts. So for a science teacher, this could be 10 weeks of curriculum. The pieces themselves are not as sturdy as Legos, they go together pretty easy but are a bit difficult to take apart, and they will break. Again, these are not intended as everyday play toys.

Years ago I reviewed some Thames & Kosmos sets and while they seemed decent at first, it became obvious over time that the quality wasn't awesome. Pieces would snap and crack with use. I was hesitant to give this set a try, but my 15 year old thought it would be something she and her younger siblings would enjoy playing with to do some science and engineering projects. My initial impression when I opened the box was the plastic pieces seemed like the same so so quality as the last sets, but I kept my opinions to myself to see what my 15 year old thought as she tried out several of the designs. It didn't take long for her to start making comments about pieces not holding together properly and the quality not being great. We have a lot of Lego and K'Nex sets and we feel this set is not up to the level of quality as those brands. We never have issues with the components or Lego or K'Nex staying together. But with Thames & Kosmos, it seems like having the pieces stay together is not the norm. The set has detailed instructions, so it has that going for it. The container it comes in has a tray for organizing some of the pieces, and the container could be stacked with other similar containers if used in a school setting. We were hoping this would be a fun hands on kit to use for our younger kids who are homeschooling this year, but I think we'll be better off using some of our K'Nex sets to make simple machines instead.

My son was all excited about this kit because it looks a lot like the name brand building blocks, but we quickly discovered that you have to be very sure before connecting anything because they're difficult (some of the smaller pieces are impossible) to separate. The good part is that my 10-year-old was able to put all of the devices together himself, following the picture directions. But the lessons are way too basic. You spend 30 to 45 minutes building a device to show that putting 2 weights on one side of a scale will be heavier than the 1 weight on the other side of the scale. Or that hitting one object with another will cause the first object to move. Maybe I'm missing something, but it just didn't seem to present anything that wasn't like "duh" material. Especially for the price of the kit, I was expecting a lot more.