By Crystal Chatterton
A hundred at-home experiments a child can run, each one followed by a plain explanation of what just happened.
Fizzy rockets, a toy car a magnet drags across the table, a sundial made from a pencil, a batch of oobleck, a balloon that blows itself up over a bottle. Every experiment follows the same three steps: what you need, what to do, and then a short plain explanation of what just happened. That last part is the reason to own this one over the dozen other activity books. Chatterton is a chemist, and she never lets a result sit there as a trick you can't account for. Built into each project is a small habit too: guess first, write the guess down, run it, then check whether you were right. So a child ends up predicting instead of just watching the fizz.
The paragraph after each experiment is what sets this apart from a stack of look-what-happens books. A child who only watched the volcano foam has seen a trick; a child who read the bit underneath knows something about an acid meeting a base, and can start guessing what the next one will do. That's how a pile of one-offs turns into something that adds up. It also suits a child who won't sit still for a story. There's no plot to hold onto, the text is short, and every few lines pay off in something happening on the table in front of them.