Educational Fun for Kids with Dr. Cool Pan for Gold Kit

Looking for something fun to do with the kids?  Hoping to bring an educational aspect to it. Gathering ideas for fun, educational, and unique gifts for kids for Christmas?  Discover with Dr Cool has all kinds of fun, educational, and hands on activity kits for kids.

 

One of the kits they offer on their site is the Dr Cool Pan for Gold Kit.  Kids can learn how to pan for gold just like the prospectors did.  The kit comes with:

•  10″ prospecting pan
• 2 bags of “pay dirt” that contains small nuggets of pyrite (fool’s gold)
• tools
• vial
• large pyrite nugget
• full color info and activity guide written by teachers

 

My kids range in age from 12 yrs down to 18 months old.  My 12 yr old and 5 yr old were the  most excited about this kit.  My 10 year old gets more interesting in building type kits.  So My oldest son, youngest son, and I decided to pan for gold together.

My 5 yr old son was interested in the large pyrite nugget.  My oldest son was ready to get to work on the directions. There is a rookie bag of pay dirt then a more advanced bag. The rookie bag has larger nuggets of pyrite to make it easier. It tells you to only pour so much dirt in the pan at one time.  After working on it for a while hind-sight told us maybe we should have used even less than what we did.

You are supposed to use a bucket or basin to dip your prospecting pan in with the dirt in it.  None of our buckets were wide enough.  I decided to use the kitchen sink and just put the stopper in.  Again, I wish we would have had something like a dish washing basin or a foot tub to do this in.  After we started working on one clearing the dirt out by swishing the water out I had to wonder if any of the small nuggets of pyrite went into the sink.  As the dirt goes in the water it of course gets cloudier so it would be difficult to see if you actually sloshed any pyrite out by accident.  At least with a basin you could pour it out little by little and check when you’re done or change the water as you go.

Still with all the mistakes we made we found some little nuggets of pyrite.  My 5 yr old was all too excited to use the magnifying glass and tweezer to pick out the tiny nuggest of pyrite and put them in the collection vial.  The nuggets were pretty small even in the rookie bag but it gives it a more authentic experience, in my opinion, of how prospectors had to work for the little bit of gold they found.  The kids had fun trying to find them in the dirt.  My oldest son started the panning with the water.  This process took a long time. I think it would have went quicker had we used less pay dirt at a time. My oldest son got tired of the panning process and I took over for a while.

 

My oldest and youngest son get a long well anyway but it was nice to see them cooperate and take turns with this kit. While we worked on it we talked about prospectors and the hard job they must have had to find a little bit of gold.

This set has won several awards including: Academic’s Choice Brain Toy Aware 2013, Best Picks Winner for New Products – Dr Toy 2012, and Tillywig Toy award 2013.

What I liked about this kit was that it was a different and educational experience for my kids. I like that it came with almost everything you need (minus the tub/buckets for water), you can use the pan and tools to pan in rivers and streams if you like, and that it’s super affordable.  Right now it’s on the Discover with Dr Cool site for only $7.50!  It’s normally $15 (which is still pretty good). This product will return to full price November 1.  So if you’re thinking about buying this for a child in your life you’ll want to grab it by October 31 to get the best deal!

You can also find Discover with Dr Cool on the following social media sites:

Facebook: facebook.com/DiscoverWithDrCool

Twitter: @DiscoverDrCool

 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.