Gift Ideas for your Children
Are your kids fascinated with rock hunting? Why not give them a gift that is educational and fun? Your purchase from Amazon helps to support this website.
Teach Children to Love Rocks with Geodes
This year for Christmas gifts I gave geodes to two of my grandchildren, ages four and seven. We had fun breaking the geodes to see what was inside. We compared what we had inside our geodes to the pictures in the booklet that comes with the kit shown at right. The four-year old had some trouble breaking the geodes herself, but she definitely enjoyed trying to crack them up. The seven-year old broke them with a hammer with a few tries. After this experience, the seven-year old now is interested in being a Geologist, and he wants to hunt for cool rocks with me.
It was a great way to engage children in my hobby. Now whenever we walk around, the children are constantly handing me pieces of quartz and asking me, "Is this an agate?"
Agates of Lake Superior Playing Cards
This gift makes the perfect stocking stuffer! Each card has a different photo of an agate on it.
Rockhound Puzzle
Assembling a puzzle is a great family activity for the holidays. While this puzzle isn't about Lake Superior Agates, it has several types of beautiful rocks to enyoy.
Agates of Lake Superior
This hard cover book, Agates of Lake Superior: Stunning Varieties and How They Are Formed, will make a great book for the coffee table.
Rock Tumbling
Rock tumbling is a fun hobby for adults and children. It is not only educational but children love to see the results at each stage. Rock tumbling can also teach patience, as you typically allow about a week for each stage. If you do not have enough rocks to get started, pick out a Stone Mix
Rock Tumbler
Consider starting with a rock tumbler with two barrels, such as this one sold on Amazon.com.
Lortone 33b Double Barrel Tumbler.
Having two barrels allows you to have your stones at two different stages. For, example you can use one barrel for new rocks to see if they are worth ongoing polishing, and the second barrel to run the rocks through the four stages of polishing.
Tumbling Grit
Your rocks are tumbled with four stages of rock polishing grit, starting with a course grit and ending with a polish. You can buy a set of grits as a package.
Tru-Square Rock Tumbling Grit, No 304.
After these four phases, run your rocks through a fifth stage with Ivory Soap and water.
Plastic Beads
When you use your rock tumbler, make sure to add plastic beads such as these:
Thumler's Tumbler 320 Plastic Tumbling Beads 1/2 lb(8 oz)
These plastic beads protect your rocks from cracking in the tumbler. The beads can be reused. Be sure to rinse them thoroughly between polishing stages. It is very important that not one grain of grit be carried forward to the next stage because it will scratch your rocks.
