The box has 15 little geodes from 1 to 1.5 in. in diameter in a bag, the plastic safety glasses and a glossy, illustrated booklet that explains how geodes came into existence and their various types.
The actual fun is the breaking of geodes to reveal the crystals inside and this is where I am deducting half a star. While this is a very interesting activity, it's also something that children, especially children from ages 6-12 simply can't do on their own. The rocks were not easy to break and, as hard as she tried, our 9 yr. old armed with a hammer and a chisel could barely scratch the surface. Our 15 and 16 yr. olds found the rocks difficult to break as well yes, anyone can smash rocks with a big hammer but the goal is to only crack them into 2 halves, 3 (thirds) at most.
Our first session lasted more than an hour and it consisted of reading the 8-page booklet and then the kids and myself worked on breaking the rocks open. Once a geode was successfully cracked we would spend some time trying to identify it using the booklet as our guide, then admire than crystal formations inside. We cracked 8 out of the 15 provided rocks, saving the rest for a second session. I don't know if it was luck but most of the geodes we opened were quite interesting, including a very nice Amethyst geode, some containing nice and clear Quartz crystals and some with smaller crystals but arranged in interesting formations.
This can be a fun and educational activity for as long as the geode-cracking part is left to the grownups.
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I love toys that are educational as well as fun. When I received an offer to test two science kits from Dr. Cool I jumped on that chance. Geodes kit was my first choice, and I was really looking forward to it as I have a fondness for rocks and wanted to share it with the kids. I really thought I would love this kit. However this kit left us frustrated. We (me and two teenagers) had very hard time cracking the rocks. After a fairly long attempt at each geode I was able to open just two.
I am attaching a collage of two photos that I will be referring to in this review.
Photo #1 shows the entire content of the kit next to the ruler so you can see the relative size of the geodes. The kit includes 15 geodes and eye protection glasses. The kit requires you use your own tools: a hammer and a chisel.
The guide gave us two methods for cracking the geodes: the chisel method and the sock method.
Method 1: Before cracking the geodes the instruction said to score the geodes so they would break along that line. We did not have a chisel and use a big screw and a screw driver to score the stone. Perhaps the lack of the proper chisel explains the difficulty in cracking the geodes. After scoring the geodes we tried tapping them with a screwdriver positioned on the scoring line. Kids could not open any, I was able to crack just a couple. Photo #2 shows the opened geode with white crystals on the inside.
Method 2: Putting a geode into a sock (to prevent small pieces flying around) and hitting it with hammer with more force than method #1. This method did not open any geodes.
I wish the kit included a chisel as this is not a common tool like a hammer, and it might have made a difference if we had it.
This is potentially a very neat toy, my recommendation is to have a strong adult present. Clearly, I was not up to par on this. We plan to try again with more muscle power present.
Ali Julia review
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I bought a few different sets of Geodes for my kids for Christmas. These were by far the best quality Geodes and they were larger than I expected them to be. Each one cracked open to reveal a large cavity with great crystals. They took some effort to open but the results were great. We used some books I bought as well as the included pamphlet to identify the type of crystals. They have added these to their rock collection. This was much more fun then just buying the already cut rock samples as they got to do this themselves.Honest reviews on Ultimate Geodes Science Kit
My children had TONS of fun breaking these geodes open, and I liked the fact that the kit included safety goggles. I'm glad we got the ultimate kit. There were a number of differences in the crystal formations inside, and it was fun to compare the crystal treasure.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Ultimate Geodes Science Kit
This Ultimate Geodes Science Kit is without a doubt one of the coolest science related sets for kids! We are science enthusiasts and enjoy doing educational project so this Geode kit was a fit for us.
The kit includes 15 unopened Geodes, a glossy manual, and safety goggles. The glossy instruction book is packed full of details on how geodes are formed and is very informative. The geodes range in size from about 1.5" to 2.5" in diameter and most can indeed be broken open by children in the target age range (6 and up). We place the geodes into a thick plastic freezer bag (see video) and we all enjoyed opening them with a hammer (not included), with "Whack it again!" as a common encouragement! The inclusion of plastic safety goggles was a nice touch and very responsible of the kit maker.
Out of 15 geodes, we were able to open 14 of them without much effort and the last one was able to be opened by me with a very heavy hammer. The crystals inside ranged from fairly small to impressively nice, but all of them were good looking and definitely worth having.
This is a great family activity that teaches important geological information and gives you a lasting, pretty reminder in the form of the opened geodes.
Highly Recommended!
CFH
Note: Kit provided by manufacture for review, but that in no way influences my comments or rating
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