I have been wanting to look at electric circuits with the kids for some time and I recently spotted this Electro Dough Kit and thought it would be a great starter set.  And it is.

This set comes with the following:

• 1 battery holder (the black square thing in the photos)
• 1 buzzer
• 10 green LED’s and 10 red LED’s
• 6 crocodile clips
• 10 jumper wires
• 2 tilt switches
• 3 plastic play dough cutters

As soon as we opened the set the kids got stuck in (you do need 4 AA batteries and some play dough).  To start with we tried some store-bought play dough and it worked well with the buzzer and the LED’s did light up. But the lights were not working as I wanted when they were set up in parallel and in series.  I really wanted the kids to clearly see the difference between the two options and the with the store-bought dough the lights looked the same.

So we decided to try the conductive dough recipe that they include on the box.  It really is so easy to make but you do need to give it time to cool, so make it in advance.

And what a difference.  As soon as we started using the conductive dough the kids could see the differences and they where hooked.  They kept changing and adding items, creating different circuits and then changing one thing in the circuit to see the difference.

My seven-year old would create a circuit that worked and then he would try to add something extra and tell me – if I add this loop those two LED’s are going to stop working or if I add this loop this extra LED will light up but that one will stop.

They really learnt a lot about circuits just by playing.

And playing.

I Love this set.  And I especially love the inclusion of the play dough as it really encourages the kids to play around, explore and have fun with the whole idea of creating a fun circuit. Both of mine have always been very fussy about which play dough we use (sensory side of things) and they both really liked the feeling of the conductive dough, my son asked if we could make extra just for fun play (I am keeping the conductive dough that we made wrapped up with the set so we can keep reusing it).

My kids and I highly recommend this set but we really recommend that you take the time and make your own conductive dough – it really does make a big difference.  Also if you have kids with sensory processing disorder the buzzer may need to be managed – my daughter liked using the buzzer but the noise did get to her so we did have to manage how often we used the buzzer in our circuits.

We bought our set from Amazon – Tech Will Save Us, Electro Dough Kit | Educational STEM Toy, Ages 4 and Up

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