Take a Surprise Ride – Mars is a Blast
Surprise Ride Review – Mars Kit
What is Surprise Ride?
Surprise Ride is a company that puts together hands-on activity kits that get your kids to put down the joystick and turn off the cellphone. Surprise Ride kits give kids something to create, and do, that is not digital.
Each kit includes:
- Everything you need to complete an awesome hands-on activity
- Step-by-step photo instructions
- Unique full photo book for continued learning
- Keepsake collectible item
Surprise Ride offers kits and bundles or you can purchase a super convenient membership where your kids will get a new “Surprise” in the mail each month.
The kits are addressed to your child and only you will know ahead of time what is in each kit.
Mars Kit Information/Review
I received a Mars Kit to review from Surprise Ride (see the Disclosure page) so I could let you know more about the program and the experiments in this kit and give you my honest feedback.
What’s Inside the Box?
- Experiment with Mars Sand Activity
- National Geographic Mars Book
- Freeze Dried Apple Snack
- Martian Toy
- Astronaut Collector Card
What Else Do I Need?
The box contains the colored sand, a petri dish, pipette and beaker so your kids can experiment with sand. Because Mars is known to be a very sandy/dusty environment, the sand experiments complement the theme and the book in the kit perfectly. All you need to add is dish soap and vegetable oil and your kids are ready to have a blast with the six sand experiments.
- Dish Soap – I used a natural dish washing liquid
- Vegetable Oil
Also exciting to note, I tried all the experiments out and still have enough sand left over to play around with again, so if you have more than one child who will want to experiment, you will have plenty of material to go around.
The direction card includes clear pictures and instructions that children can follow independently, as well as a card for mom and dad giving some details about what items will be needed, clean up, difficulty level and any other surprises in the package that you may want to point out to your kids.
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Fun Surprises
Other fun things in the kit: the clear spoon that changes color when it gets cold, a tasty freeze-dried snack like the astronauts eat in space, and a comical little keepsake Martian figure – all great for sparking your child’s imagination in pretend play. The Surprise Facts Booklet included covers information that you will want to read with your child so they won’t be smarter than you! The Astronaut Collector Card in the kit is a great way for them to remember their adventures. Bonus: the card includes a new joke they can share with you and all their friends.
I also want to tell you about the National Geographic Kids book that came in the kit. It has beautiful illustrations and important information about the Red Planet written in an engaging way. Kids who are able to read fluently will be able to read it on their own, but it would make a fun read-aloud for the rest of the family too.
This kit is not only entertaining, but it is a valuable learning tool for your homeschooling family. It includes hands-on Science activities integrated with language arts. The kit includes all the materials and simple to follow instructions which makes it easy to use.
Note: you are going to want to go over clean-up instructions personally with your kids so that they don’t dump the post experimental sand down your sink.
The sand experiments and the reading material stretch your child’s creative thinking. The kit is safe and flexible enough that it could be used alone by your child for an independent learning activity while you work with your younger students, it could be used by multiple children or the activities could be guided by you.
How You Can Find Surprise Ride Kits
You are going to want to take a look at all the kits that are available. There are some great themes and great ways to get kids to “unplug”!
Other Kits Include:
- Perform a Magic Show
- Design a Super Cape
- Paint a Birdhouse
- Build Beeswax Candles
- Build a Volcano Science Kit
- Build a Model Moon Science Kit
- Paint a Pirate Chest
- Make a Penguin Pillow Activity Kit
- Make Monster Slime Science Kit
- Experiment with the Mars Sand Science Kit
- Sculpt a Pet Photo Holder Kit
- Build a Dinosaur Science Kit
Homeschool Focus & Discount
Surprise Ride is super supportive of home educators. When you visit their website, you will not want to miss their helpful and encouraging homeschool blog posts, including posts about finding your homeschool style and how to use the kits in your homeschool.
The company offers a 15% Homeschool Discount on any of their subscriptions.
