Break Your Own Geodes from Multiple GEODE Mines Kit 12 Whole Geodes

So glad we chose this kit! I read so many reviews on all kinds of other geode kits, and I landed on this one because it was best reviewed and seemed to be the most for the money. (12 geodes for $30) I was NOT disappointed. This was amazing!No duds at all. 12 beautiful geodes. The kit comes with safety goggles, several thick bags to put the rocks in while you break them, to prevent flying rock shards, a little magnifying glass, and WONDERFUL instructions and information.My 6, 8, and 10 year olds were able to crack them, by themselves, with a hammer. Only 3 needed daddy to come use a chisel (those being the more slowly cooled types with thicker walls and larger crystal structures inside).My kids were so excited to see, not just the crystal colors, but the formation. The tiny crystals were quick cooling magma bubbles, the medium crystals cooled less quickly, and the large crystals (hardest ones to break) cooled slowly. All of them are gorgeous and sparkle like a million diamonds in the sun.This was the coolest experience, and the quality of the geodes is exactly what was described from the seller. I would highly recommend this kit.

My son is 5 and a half years old and, for whatever reason and to my great joy, loves science!!! This year I themed his Christmas around science and one of the gifts he received from Santa was this geode kit. He has been bugging relentlessly to open the kit and today we finally did and it was a lot of fun. Each geode held a new surprise inside and I think he enjoyed the variety as much as he did cracking them open. All geodes were authentic and came in a variety of sizes, the smallest being Nicole sized (only one of those).I didn't realize how tough they would be to crack open. We tried making a fracture line but it was very tedious and time consuming and in the end, didn't really work well. Eventually, we ended up giving them one or two good knocks and TA-DA, beautiful crystals! He was just as excited to see the inside as he was about Mommy allowing him to smash rocks with a hammer! Highly recommend this fun, family activity. Worth every penny..but even more, it made me happy to hear from my five year old, "I LOVE SCIENCE!!"And make sure you do it somewhere you don't mind getting messy AND you'll need a broom to sweep up all the debris!

Good buy. Interesting, informative, & it came with an assortment of different geodes, as advertised.I built a jig to hold them steady, & allow the kids to wail away on them with a hammer, without any worry about breaking pavement, or fingers, but these babies are tough! Broke the jig several bashes in on the first Geode, & just used the base to keep it from jumping around too much, thereafter. My 35 yr old son wailed on that sucker for a while, using both the flat & the pointy ends of his hammer, & even he took many swings before breaking it.Then we gave up, & went for the diamond saw he has, & just cut the rest. Not much fun - just watching Daddy cut stone with a power saw, so the kids wandered off, & just came back for the reveals. I found it interesting to see the insides, & while they weren't anything too amazing inside, you could see the sparkling bits in the sun, & there were even a few with real, identifiable crystals in there. All of ours were hollow, but some were quite small (3 out of 12 were walnut sized, & the rest were bigger). It made it difficult to hold them in the vise, & still have enough sticking up to cut off. (We used cardboard, to get a better grip in the vise.)We got them all cut, and while not all were pretty, there were a few with potential. I washed them all, and they looked better wet than dry, so after I buffed some on my bench grinder, they looked better, and I will polyurethane them when they get dry.I did take a shot at dying some of the broken pieces (because I'd seen some for sale that said they were dyed), and it was interesting. The Green food dye turned out looking aquamarine, and the blue turned into a pretty blue, with some light and dark bits. The Red looked more orangy-pink, and the yellow barely showed at all. Once dried overnight, they did not seem to be coloring anyone's fingers, so I think you could do it OK, and especially if you put polyurethane on after. Shiny and colored. : )I wouldn't get hung up on the amazing showstopper's you'll get, but if you're just interested to learn a bit (from their included booklet), and see what's inside one, this was fun. Have a tile saw, or angle grinder, etc on hand, if you want a smooth edge, or it's likely to be a bit of rubble with the hammer only, and probably only Dad will succeed in breaking them at all.

I got these for my son for Christmas & he was exicted to open them. We went over to Granpa's since he had a stone chisel & hammer. A few broke into a couple pieces, but some of them ended up being in about 2 halves. Almost all of them were hollow with crystals & there was one that was mostly a big crystal with a small hollow part. We ended up having multiple colors & types of insides. We had black, brown (I said it looked like chocolate), white, clear, purple, blue, pink & gray. There were multiple kinds of crystals inside. Some had big chunky crystals, some had thin spikey crystals, one had sandy beach look & one had a couple different types inside. My son let my daughter do a few & she thought it was really fun also. We are going to clean them up put them with the crystals he has grown himself. I would say they ranged in size from about 1.5" to 2.5" & there was one that was about tennis ball size.