Whether your child is an aspiring scientist, a creative thinker, or an outdoor adventurer, this gift guide is filled with engaging, educational, and fun ideas that inspire curiosity, creativity, and exploration. These gifts are perfect for hands-on play, learning, investigating and creativity.
If you’re interested in eco-friendly gifts, you’re covered – you’ll find plenty of presents here that are printed using only paper from FSC/PEFC certified suppliers. That’s Christmas, sorted!
For Scientists-in-Training (Aged 6-12)
Nurture their love of discovery with these hands-on science gifts that are both fun and educational. They’re perfect for children who love to explore new ideas, solve puzzles, and embark on imaginative journeys.
Letterbox Lab – The Explore Box Suitable for explorers aged 6-12, each box is filled with exciting experiments that make science fun and accessible. All consumables needed for each experiment are included!
Letterbox Lab – The Investigate Box More advanced experiments for kids aged 8-12 who are ready to dive deeper into science, delivered to your door every month.
Whizz Pop Bang Snip-Out Science Book Craft paper volcanoes, flying machines and more with this book of hands-on projects that blend science, creativity, and fun.
Whizz Pop Bang Science Scrapbook A creative space for young scientists to plan investigations and record results of experiments.
Space magazines Explore the Sun, Moon, Mars and the stars in this epic collection of space-themed science magazines.
Lab coat This science essential keeps clothes in tip-top condition during even the messiest experiments!
More Gifts We Love!
Dinosaur magazines From prehistoric flying beasts to the story of extinction, Whizz Pop Bang’s back issue collection is full of fact-packed reads for any wannabe palaeontologist.
Whizz Pop Bang Joke Book Get ready for some super science-y giggles, with over 200 hilarious jokes to get the whole family laughing out loud!
Hoopla: Secrets and Spies Tiptoe into the world of secrets, spies and codes! Design a fantastic face mask to hide your identity, make your own cipher wheel, cook treats with hidden messages inside and solve some safe-cracking puzzles. Head outside to look for nature clues as you make a beautiful wristband, plus there are riddles, jokes and a colouring page to enjoy.
Whizz Pop Bang Riddle Book Test their wit and problem-solving skills with this fun and engaging collection of over 150 tricky teasers.
Whizz Pop Bang Puzzle Book Jam-packed with more than 150 brilliant brain-bending puzzles, all with a science twist! With so many puzzles to get stuck into, it’s sure to keep your child busy for hours and hours!
Hoopla: Treasure Hunt Shine a light on glittering treasure! Grow your own edible crystals, craft a shining star and go on a treasure hunt! You can find out about shimmering goldfish and bake some delicious treats to give as a gift. Plus there are puzzles, jokes and a treasure-themed quiz.
Here’s a record you CAN try to beat at home. The farthest flight by a paper aeroplane made from a single sheet of A4 paper is 88.31 metres! Find out how to make another record-breaking plane here:
Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to skydive without a parachute?! Head this way for the answer (and to watch a jaw-dropping video all about it!)
Find out about more amazing record-breaking journeys in Whizz Pop Bang 113: FESTIVE SCIENCE FUN!
Here’s your chance to win one of ten copies of The Science Museum Puzzle Book: Journey Into Space. Keep reading to tackle some of the intergalactic puzzles featured inside!
Plan a mission, train to be an astronaut, launch a rocket and discover what it’s like to live in space as you tackle the teasers in this brilliant puzzle book!
As well as over 100 space-themed puzzles, this book is stuffed with essential space facts and profiles of significant people and moments linked to space exploration.
Put your brain to the test with these puzzles, taken from Journey Into Space: A Science Museum Puzzle Book. You’ll find the competition below these puzzles.
We’ve got ten copies of this book to give away! Simply answer the question in the comments to be in with a chance.
Which person has travelled into space?
A Helen Sharman B Galileo Galilei C Arthur C. Clarke
The Science Museum Puzzle Book: Journey Into Space by The Science Museum is published by Seven Dials available in trade paperback and eBook on 7th November 2024. RRP £14.99.
Do you know a small scientist who is always coming up with new inventions? They are bound to love this new book which proves that small inventions can make a huge difference to our world!
We have five copies ofSmall Inventions That Changed The World by Roma Agrawak and Jisu Choi to give away! Thank you to Hachette Children’s Group for providing this epic prize.
This book shines a spotlight on tiny change makers including the nail, the wheel and string. It’s hard to image how such humble objects can be significant, but this book explains how they were crucial to the development of advanced technology like spaceships and skyscrapers.
Small Inventions That Changed The Worldtakes readers on a spectacular and intriguing journey through centuries, from the Silk Road to the International Space Station.
We’ve got five copies of this stunning and inspiring book to give away! Simply answer the question in the comments to be in with a chance.
Which of the below is a type of engineering?
A Civet B Civil C Cirrus
Small Inventions That Changed The World by Roma Agrawal and Jisu Choi is published by Hachette Children’s Group and is available now. RRP £16.99.
We have FOUR copies of the brand new book from astrophysicist, Lisa Harvey-Smith – Universal Guide to the Night Sky to give away!
Wherever you are in this world – whether that be in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, in the city or a remote region – this book guides you through the remarkable features of planet Earth’s starry sky.
Receive a personal tour through the wonders of the universe from astrophysicist Lisa Harvey-Smith. Explore comets and meteors, stars, planets and moons. Find galaxies and glowing gas clouds. Spot supernovae and enjoy eclipses. Learn everything you need to know about binoculars, telescopes and photographing the stars. You will never look up at the stars in the same way again.
Featuring intergalactic illustrations by Sophie Beer, this global guide to the sky is your ticket out of this world.
To win one of FOUR copies, answer this question in the comments:
What is the name for scientists who focus on observations of the skies?
Many animals, including walruses, penguins and monkeys, huddle in groups to keep warm. The centre of a huddle of Emperor penguins can reach 24℃ when the air temperature is as low as -40℃!
Why do carrots grow underground? Why aren’t rivers salty? Why do bouncy balls bounce? What’s the Moon for? Why don’t human eyes glow like cats’ eyes? Why does ice stick to your skin? Why do we shiver? How is fire made? Why do people have different accents?
If there’s a curious child in your family who never stops asking ‘why?’, Whizz Pop Bang could be just the answer you’re looking for! Give a gift subscription this Christmas and help your scientist-in-training to understand the world around them. Get a free Science Magazine worth £5.99 with every subscription!
Keep reading to find the answers to these questions written by Whizz Pop Bang’s expert team of scientists, and discover why endless questioning is a really important part of your child’s development (even when finding the answers can be challenging!)
Every issue of Whizz Pop Bang is packed with fascinating facts, simple scientific explanations, and experiments designed to demonstrate the answers to some of your child’s burning questions. Our team of expert scientists (including our all-knowing robot, Y) are on hand to answer our readers’ questions every issue, too – so if you can’t find the answer to your child’s latest conundrum here, why not email us at y@whizzpopbang.com and see if we can help?
Meanwhile, here are the scientific explanations of a few wonderful questions we’ve been asked recently…
Why do carrots and other vegetables grow underground and not above ground?
We eat at least six different parts of plants. Sometimes we eat the leaves (e.g. lettuce and kale and cabbage). Sometimes we eat the stems (e.g. celery, asparagus, and rhubarb). We eat seeds, such as sunflower seeds and sweetcorn. We eat flowers (such as broccoli) and fruit. And we also eat roots and tubers. A carrot is the main root (or tap root) of a carrot plant. As well as soaking up water and minerals from the soil, it acts as an underground food store for the plant. That makes it a great food for us, too!
Why aren’t rivers salty, like the sea?
Rain isn’t salty because when water evaporates, anything dissolved in it is left behind. Rivers are topped up by this rainwater, so they aren’t very salty either. But rivers do pick up some salt as they rush over rocks. Eventually, this salt ends up in the sea. Rivers around the world carry 3.6 billion tonnes of salt to the oceans every year! But the oceans don’t just get saltier and saltier, because about the same amount of salt sinks to the seabed each year, becoming part of new rocks.
Why do bouncy balls bounce and don’t just stick on the ground like a rock?
Unlike rocks, bouncy balls are made of elastic materials, such as rubber. Elastic materials are flexible – it’s easy to change their shape. But they return to their original shape after being squashed or stretched. When the ball hits the ground, it is squashed out of shape. Some of its movement energy is changed into elastic energy, stored very briefly inside the ball. Once the ball has come to a stop, this elastic energy is released as the ball returns to its original shape. The ball pushes against the ground and the ground pushes back, sending the ball back up into the air.
Why do we need the moon?
About 4.5 billion years ago, a giant space rock the size of Mars crashed into Earth and knocked off a chunk of our planet. This chunk of rock became the Moon, and it still orbits Earth, roughly once every 27 days. The Moon is big enough and close enough that its gravity causes bulges in Earth’s water that sweep across the planet’s oceans and seas, causing the tides. Many living things have adapted to depend on the tides for shelter and food. Humans who live near coasts also depend on the tides for catching certain fish and sea creatures, and for sports like surfing. But if the Moon suddenly disappeared it wouldn’t just be coastal life that was disrupted. All life depends on the Moon, because it helps to keep Earth’s climate stable.
Develop your child’s problem solving skills with the Whizz Pop Bang Science Riddle book!
Why don’t human eyes glow like cats’ eyes do in the dark?
Want to know why cats’ eyes glow? They shine in the dark because each eye has a thin layer of crystals at the back. This layer is called the tapetum lucidum. Its job is to bounce light back into the cat’s eye. This extra light helps cats to see better in the dark. Lots of other crepuscular and nocturnal animals have this light-reflecting layer too. Most animals that are awake in the daytime don’t, including humans. However, you’ll sometimes see human eyes glow red in a photograph, when the bright light of a camera flash bounces off the back of our eyes.
Why do ice cubes stick to your fingers and ice lollies stick to your tongue?
Heat always moves from a warmer place to a colder place. When you lick a lolly, heat flows from your toasty tongue to the, erm, icy ice. If the lolly is very cold, the saliva coating your tongue drops below 0°C before your body can warm it back up. The saliva freezes and becomes part of the chunk of ice along with the lolly! The same can happen with wet fingers and a very cold ice cube. Never pull your skin away – use room temperature water to melt the ice and set yourself free!
Why do your teeth chatter when you’re cold?
Want to know why do we shiver? Deep inside your brain, your hypothalamus (say hi-po-thal-a-mus) is busy monitoring your core body temperature. It’s your inbuilt thermostat! But instead of turning on the central heating when you drop below 37°C, the hypothalamus triggers reactions that help keep your organs warm while you find shelter! One of these is shivering. Muscles produce heat as they contract – think how warm you get when you exercise. Shivering is your body’s way of making your muscles contract and relax as you stand still. As your jaw muscles shiver, your lower jaw moves up and down quickly, bumping your teeth together.
How does fire form?
Heat is one part of the ‘fire triangle’ – the three things needed for a fire to start. The other two are fuel (something to burn) and oxygen (from the air). The heat – from a burning match, lightning or even the Sun’s rays – starts a reaction between the fuel and the oxygen. This produces gases, including water vapour and carbon dioxide. It also releases energy as heat and light. This heat keeps the reaction going until the fuel or oxygen runs out, or the fire is cooled.
Why do people have different accents?
People can speak the same language with very different accents. This is because we aren’t born speaking a particular language, but with a brain that is brilliant at absorbing and imitating any sounds it hears. This amazing ability to learn is why people tend to speak with the accent they heard most often when they were very young. By the time we are a year old, we are less able to hear different sounds and it becomes harder to pick up a new accent. The ability to imitate stays with us though, so accents can change as people move around, or even during a conversation. In fact, scientists have found that mimicking each other’s speech patterns can help two people to understand each other better, and make friends more quickly.
We’ve got THREE bumper sets to give away from Connetix worth £115 each!
We have an epic giveaway this December, this is not one you want to miss out on! We’ve partnered with Connetix and have three massive, 120 piece magnetic construction sets to give away.
The Connetix 120 Piece Pastel Creative Pack makes playtime engaging and educational, sparking boundless creativity and promoting educational, playful experiences for children of all ages. This amazing creative pack offers a spectrum of shapes in 8 delightful pastel colours, making it the perfect canvas for constructing impressive Connetix creations, from intricate designs to grand-scale masterpieces.
Whether children are absorbed in solitary play or engaging with friends and family, constructions toys like this one from Connetix spark STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and, Mathematics) learning while nurturing fine and gross motor skills. Kids can assemble towering castles, futuristic rockets, majestic towers, sturdy bridges, and much more.
The high-quality, open-ended pack seamlessly adapts to your child’s evolving interests and abilities, providing a platform for increasingly complex and imaginative play experience
For your chance to win, simply answer this question in the comments:
Woohoo! We are so proud to have reached our 100th edition of Whizz Pop Bang! To celebrate this milestone edition, we are giving away an entire year’s subscription to Whizz Pop Bang and some of our awesome science books. Will you be our lucky winner?
The winner of this epic bundle of science goodies will look forward to a brand new edition of Whizz Pop Bang rocketing through their letterbox every month plus a Whizz Pop Bang Science Puzzle Book and Scrap Book (with stickers!).
To be in for a chance of winning, simply answer this question in the comments:
What’s the closest planet to the Sun in our solar system?
A) Earth
B) Venus
C) Mercury
This competition closes at midnight on 30th November 2023 and is open to UK residents only. For full terms and conditions visit whizzpopbang.com/terms-and-conditions