Blue Marble NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Break Open 10 Premium Geodes – Includes Goggles & Display Stands – STEM Science Kit, Geology Gift for Kids, Break Your Own Geodes

Fantastic geology set
This dig out your own geodes set is perfect for children aged 5-10 years. There are 10 geodes to dig out using the supplied tools. As with all National Geographic products, the quality is very high and the packing is very eye catching and engaging. Our 8 year old absolutely loves his. Would highly recommend.

Interesting set of 10 geodes with safety goggles, BUT difficult to open some of them!
This review is for the ‘Blue Marble NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Break Open 10 Premium Geodes – Includes Goggles & Display Stands – STEM Science Kit, Geology Gift for Kids, Break Your Own Geodes.’This Geode kit arrives in a sealed cardboard box with information and pictures on it. Included in the box are 10 Geodes, one pair of safety glasses, a small magnifying glass, an instruction leaflet with information, and 2 little triangular display stands.We were excited to receive this kit as have never seen geodes before and wanted to experience breaking them open to reveal the crystal formations inside. We found it much easier said than done!The booklet suggests 2 methods for opening up the geodes;a) Using a chisel to score a line round the middle and using chisel and hammer to hopefully split it in two neat parts.b) Placing the geode in a sock and hitting it hard with a hammer.We tried both methods!My husband wielded the hammer and chisel (we both wore safety glasses!) He started with one of the bigger geodes and he kept chiselling and hammering away but that geode was tough and was not showing any signs of splitting, so we ended up giving up on it.He tried a smaller one in a sock and hit it pretty hard with the hammer a few times. That smashed into small pieces revealing sparkly white/grey crystals on the inside. The pieces are all rather small and rough.He then tried a small-medium geode using the sock method and hit it hard with the hammer just a couple of times. That split into several jagged pieces and revealed sparkly grey/ white crystal.We will attempt the others another day!It was much harder to break them open than we expected, so that was disappointing, but it is interesting to see the crystal formation inside.I think it could be a good gift for a geology student.

Harder to crack open than the video suggests
This geodes set come with safety goggles and a plastic magnifying glass.It is very difficult to break open one of the rocks if you follow the written instructions which come with the kit. It says to use a hammer and chisel. In the absence of a chisel I tried using a screwdriver. You need three hands for this; one for the hammer, one for the chisel and one to hold the rock steady.Before writing this review I looked at one of the videos on its Amazon page and this shows a young girl holding the rock on the ground and hitting it with a hammer. The written instructions make it out to be a much more delicate affair to crack open the rocks.The safety goggles are definitely needed to protect your eyes for bits of rock flying off unless you put the rock inside a sock, which is recommended in the booklet but not carried out in the video. It is also much harder to break open the rocks than depicted in the video.

nice science set for child
This comes with 10 geodes and also goggles and the display stands for your crystal rocks. These rocks are the size of a tennis ball. It’s hard to break open but once you do, the crystals are so shiny and pretty. My daughter loved the yellow and purple one that she got. The stands also display the rocks nicely.