Educational Insights GeoSafari Mystery Rock

My 10 year old daughter loves everything rock, fossil, and gem-related. She BEGGED me to get her this for Christmas. I thought it looked pretty cool, so I did. My mistake was not reading the reviews first. I agree with all the issues others have mentioned here, but I'll state them again. The first disappointment was the size of the mystery rock "matrix" (i.e., the clay that the rocks and gems are hidden in). It was maybe 7 inches in diameter and three inches thick, max. Second, upon opening the box, we discovered that there are only 9 (or maybe 10, the information on this was contradictory) specimens in the matrix, NOT 15 as pictured on the box. Third, I understand why they give you a plastic excavation tool to unearth the rocks, so as not to damage them (they are quite small, and some are also fragile) but geez, this thing mostly wore out before she even got the first specimen out of the matrix. We resorted to carefully using the pointy end of a metal can/bottle opener. Fourth disappointment - after excavating the tiny pieces of turquoise and malachite (we think - the "malachite" was actually just a tiny bead of some sort, same with the "emerald", which was not only a bead, but I'm fairly sure it may even be made of plastic), my daughter pretty much lost interest in this. We resorted to dissolving the rest of the clay in water to unearth the rest of the specimens and straining the water to make sure we weren't missing anything. Made a huge mess, but the dissolving was actually the most fun part about this whole thing. My daughter's comment, "when they say hours of fun on the box, they really mean hours of work, for not much payoff," pretty much sums up this product. And the most educational thing about this product is a lesson in the powers of false advertising.

I gave this to my 7 year old. He was very excited at first and so was I. It turns out that you will have to scrape the surface of this rock very, very hard and patiently, just like the real thing I guess, and we never had enough patience to get to any rock before this rock was put away. Also it is a very dusty job and that makes me not want my son to keep on scraping because he is inhaling this dust, I guess you could wear a dust mask, and that can never be good. Also there is a label on the box warning that some rocks might contain lead.....so if you are also worried about that this is not a good toy.

Our 7 year old daughter had a blast with this. It was something we worked on together. Very educational and probably something she will remember for the rest of her life. It takes patience but its fun. The only thing is, two of the stones or gems that are included in the 9 that you get are teeny tiny little beads. They should at least tell you that beforehand. I think its overpriced. But the experience was great.

I bought this for my 4 year old grandson, he loves finding treasures, but we found the dirt in our rock to be so hard to dig that even the adults couldn't manage it, forget even trying the small brush that was provided. We finally wet the dirt and dug in the mud, the rocks and gems were fairly nice once we got them out, but the digging experience just wasn't there. Everything the digging rock and the gems you find were a little smaller than I had expected.

My daughter has really enjoyed the Mystery Rock. Although my only disappointment was the digging tools that came with this product. I would suggest to anyone who orders this product make it an outside project because it is very dusty.

This was a gift for my grandson. He absolutely loved digging in the rock to find the treasures. He is fascinated by rocks and fossils so this was the perfect gift for it. It was a little small for the price but he loved it.

I bought this as a Christmas gift for my niece. It is a fun toy & I believe she enoyed using it, but I have to say it was much smaller than I thought it would be. It comes in a VERY small box. For the price, I wish it was bigger.

Large to medium rocks show on the package and in pictures, tiny little rocks in the actual product. Also, the digging tool is very low quality and you will likely end up using something else, like a small hammer and chisel. I strongly suggest buying another digging set; one NOT by Educational Insights/GeoSafari.

Viene en un empaque muy grande y la piedra que excavas es miniatura. Las gemas y piedras de adentro no tienen nada emocionante. No lo recomiendo.