4M KidzLabs Crystal Mining

Just to start off this is my husbands account and I am the mother of 5 children and bought this for our 7 year old daughter and 9 year old son. My only regret was not buying one for our 4.5 year old son who watched on and was pretty upset he didn't have his own, but was able to get a few turns from his siblings. A few tips….#1 I would definitely say this kit is best used outdoors. It makes a lot of dust or sand like particles. Its almost like a powder at times and can get messy. Don't wear your best. We found putting the plaster brick on a gallon size plasticware lid was perfect for occasionally dumping the dust off into the grass from our deck table where they worked. I don't think I would use this indoors, but it may work for you.#2 I would start with a gallon size container or another storage device to store the brick and the tools/card/sachet it comes with in case your child needs a break. It was very easy to set in the gallon plastic container and come back to it and keep away from younger siblings. You can even store for another day if needed.#3 This probably isn't for a child who gets frustrated easily or lacks patience or does not like tedious tasks. My children only used the tools it came with and my daughter excavated a good 30 minutes before even seeing a piece of a crystal. When she did it made it that much sweeter. She squealed with delight! She also found 3 crystals in the time it took her older brother to find 1. It really just depends where the crystals are placed and you are mining.#5 After the above tip it should be obvious this isn't a project to be started if you have to stop in say 15 minutes. Just to read the instructions and set up and really get started I would at least give a good 45 minutes. That being said it took several hours to mine all the crystals. My son did it in a few days.As a homeschooling family this was a great spring activity. They sat out on our deck at the table and as they started to complain a tad about how warm it was with the sun beating down on them I was able to talk with them a bit about archaeologists and how hot that can get in some climates and how they used to "dig" vs how they have more tools at their disposal now. I reminded them that this was a sure thing for them and not always the archaeologist.The stones are very large compared to other sets I have read about I would say the stones probably are worth at least what you paid for the kit. I wish I had looked into making wire necklaces out of them. My daughter liked them in the little brown pouch it came with so she could feel them and look at them. My son chose to put them in the display card and ID them. It comes with an ID guide. Something I read in another kit was absent.I will say I will be buying this kit for gifts this year. Such a great deal. The price has gone down $3 since I bought it and I still feel we got a great product at a great price!Have Fun!Liz

I purchased two of these kits for my local Boys and Girls Club (where I volunteer). I thought they would be an interesting way to get kids excited about science (and a lot of my kids show ZERO interest in school, so that was hoping for a lot out of them). I had NO idea how big of an ordeal these kits would become!A few kids took interest right away. And to be honest, they were the kids who liked science class in school. But soon after they dug out a rock or two- a dozen more kids showed up. And then a dozen more! Soon every kid was clawing their way into the rock, shouting "I found one!" and getting excited to look up what kind of rock they had gotten. It was an interactive experiment that got them involved and excited about science! I was so excited for them!These kits are made for only one child, but we had to share ours amongst many kids. This was okay- but at the end of the day only a few of the kids had rocks to take home. I have more listed on our Amazon wish list in the hopes we can do this again and end it with everyone having rocks.Each kit comes with a large block of what seems to be hard-packed sand. There are also a few tools to dig with, and a brush to 'ease' the rocks out of the block. There is a small leather pouch to safely keep your rocks in, and also an identification sheet which lists out all of the rocks with a picture and a short description.The blocks are relatively easy to chip away at. With one kid I'd say it'd take a good hour to find all of the rocks. With multiple kids it took us about ten minutes. But the ten minutes was well worth it! There were so many things we were able to discuss. We got to talk about excavating things- and how people also do this same exact thing with dinosaur fossils (which was awesome!). We got to discuss different kinds of rocks, and identifying them (also learning where they came from and how they were made). And most importantly, we got to get excited about science! Of course, the kids didn't realize it was 'Science' (the same thing they despise in school). And once I explained that it was- a few even noted that they actually enjoyed science now. And science was fun.I seriously cannot even begin to describe how awesome of a toy this is. I recommend it to EVERYONE! Granted it may not be as cool as a race car or as intrigueing as an xBox game. But it is really really engaging, and most of all- educational!

First day of summer vacation, and it's raining! Happily, this arrived in the mail today. It arrived at the same time as the Mine for Gems Science kit, a product with a similar makeup but three times the price. My 7 year old used this kit, and his 5 year old brother used the other one. While the Mine for Gems kit comes with a plaster block in a tray and a metal tool, this one is a small block wrapped in plastic and comes with a plastic tool. When the boys took their kits out, my older boy was initially disappointed with his smaller block and plastic tool. However, he brightened up at the magnifying glass.After my son flicked some of the dirt from the block into his eye, he got his pool goggles for the rest of the work. I highly recommend this, no only because eye protection is a good idea, but he looked like a super cute scientist. We also got out our actual hammer and he used the back side of the hammer to get the block into pieces. That was when he finally started finding gemstones. It took some time and patience, and I had started trying to soak pieces in water to help, but he ended up finding several when he finally got the block to break down the middle. The set says it comes with 8 gemstones, but he actually ended up with 12! I thought maybe he'd broken a couple with the hammer, but as the gemstones are tumbled and smooth, I found that that was not the case.All in all, it was the perfect rainy-day activity, fun and educational, and I'm happy with this purchase. It's very affordable, so no complaints about the included tools, but you may want a hammer to get things going.