Toysmith Mineral Science Kit, Children 8+ years

Toysmith's mineral Science kit is a great kit to get your kids or student interested in rocks and minerals. It comes with 15 specimen, magnifying glass, nail to test hardness and streak plate to test powder color. It also includes a mineral identification key that outlines the color, luster, streak, hardness and other information about each rock within the kit. It also includes information about identifying minerals and test that can be done on them.

Our daughter really likes to collect rocks and we live in a good area to do that. Some of them are from some special occasion (for her), like visiting the beach. Others are semi-precious stones of various types. Others, she just found around our neighborhood and they caught her eye. I got this set for her to learn more about them and basically every rock, stone, or mineral she'll ever find. The set is marked, Not a Toy, and they're right -- it's a geology science course in a box. The two-page booklet explains how to identify and classify minerals of all types, not only those included. In our box, we received: Fluorite, Feldspar/microline, Hematite, Pyrite, Milky quartz, Calcite, Mica/muscovite, Magnetite, Gypsum/alabaster, Talc, Pyrolusite, Mica/biotite, Graphite, Gypsum/satin spar, and Gypsum/selenite. The booklet includes a table which spells out how the different minerals are rated. Ratings include color, luster, streak, and hardness. My daughter says that, after checking the minerals, and seeing how they're rated in the booklet, she can test her own collection. I think that this would make a great gift for anyone who loves collecting rocks and wants to learn more about them.

The Toysmith Mineral Science Kit is a great first set for kids to introduce them to different kinds if minerals. This set is compact but includes a lot. It comes with 15 different minerals, a magnifyingglass, nail, and scraping stone. I love that the kit also comes with a booklet that helps you identify each of the minerals. Each mineral is good sized. My kids had a lot of fun identifying and studying the minerals. I loved that not only did they have a lot of fun with this kit but it was also educational and they learned a lot. It's a nice kit that they will have a long time and can it will providehours of fun and learning.

This took me back to my childhood. So awesome discovering all these rocks with my daughter, shes really into science and rocks so this was perfect for her. We had a great time, learning hownto rest, classify and identify all these different minerals. Now when we go on walks shes picking up rocks and trying to identify what kind of mineral it might be. Super great for children into Geology!

The item came with how many - 15 small pieces of rocks and each one is numbered. One is encouraged to feel and test the rocks. It has a magnifying glass (good enough to play the scientist), a long nail (not from the hardware store, it is not that sharp), and a plate (to test for it color, if streaked). They are all good and safe to use. I have a similar but a smaller set purchased from Hall of Science back in the old days, and I was thrilled then. I showed this set to my kids - they have already spent an hour on it and continuing. It is worth the experience.

My grandson loves to collect rocks and always wants to play with my polished rock collection so I thought this would be something nice to have around the house when he comes to visit. We looked over the 15 different minerals that come with the kit and at age 7 just identifying the minerals was fun for him. I do think he was a little young for some of the other activities. Just a note, it is not a toy, it even says that on the box. Grandma left it in the toy room and the four-year-old grandson messed up the box and scattered everything. I should've put it up in the closet with the board games. It did spark an even greater love of rocks and minerals for my older grandson though.

This is very intriguing to my son. He spends quite a bit of time working on learning more about different minerals. It's encouraged him to look outside of the kit and be more interested in the minerals and rocks, etc in the environment. I love exposing him to things that he can learn.

This kit is nice. I love that it includes 15 different types of minerals. Most likely minerals we wouldn't have access to otherwise. The kit comes with 3 different tools to use to explore these minerals. The magnifying lens, nail, and streak plate can all be used to help children learn about the different properties of the minerals. My children enjoyed this very much. I wish there was more children could do with these minerals. Maybe experiments or a website where we can go for more information. The kit just seems a little limited as it is now. We do the tests to identify the minerals, but there doesn't seem like there's anything left to do. It would be nice to use this kit over and over again.

I Got this product for my daughter thinking she will love it. She was excited about it. For a while. Then she got bored with it and stop playing with it. It's not interested her anymore. She put it down and never pick it back up. So I decided to put it away. It's is be better for kids who love science.

Unfortunately my kids were not very impressed with this mineral kit and I can't say that I am either. I had envisioned it to be quite a bit bigger, both the box and the mineral samples, but everything is quite small, including the tiny magnifying glass, and with everything being so small it makes it hard to hold and inspect the samples. The variety of minerals is not bad, but I do wish there were more to see, or at the very least that they were bigger, also the tiny # stickers that correctly identify the samples to not stay on very well. I do appreciate the educational aspect and science, and I am happy my kids at least learned a little something, they just wish there was more to do and see. All in all this is not something I would recommend, it's not bad or poor quality, it's just very small and although my kids enjoyed looking and learning a little about the minerals they did not seem to be overly interested in it and they did not want to do much other than look at them. Now if you have a child who is extremely interested in geology this would probably be pretty cool to them, but I still think it should be bigger or at least have more samples to look at.