This is good, but my grandchildren preferred the dinosaur eggs.

Although a brilliant idea, I bought this for my 7 year old and I didn’t anticipate such a large mess. Not thinking I let him do it in his room on his own. There was clay dust EVERYWHERE.

Our kids (ages 5-8) love these excavation kits. We have tried the GeoWorld brand and this one. I will list the Pro's and Con's of both brands.<br /><br />GeoWorld:<br />Pros - The fossil replica is more sturdy and not as flimsy or likely to break. The tools provided are better quality, made of sturdy hard plastic (not the cheap ones that will like bend and break). The brush it comes with is much better than the Smithsonian brush.<br />Cons - Does not include goggles. The clay is much harder to chisel away (as stated by my kids), probably better for older kids.<br /><br />Smithsonian:<br />Pros - Better packaging (probably better for gift-giving). Includes goggles which is essential with all the debris coming off the clay. Clay is easier to break (better suited for younger kids). Also comes with a nice poster of the dinosaur and information about it.<br />Cons - Fossil replica is not sturdy. It is made of inferior plastic that bend and break easily. Bits of the plastic broke off when chiseling the clay. The brush is a poor quality paint brush that you get from the dollar store. Has very thin bristles that are pretty much useless. We ended up using the GeoWorld brush instead. The hammer tool is a wooded hammer and the chisel is simply a cheap wooden spike. Again we ended up using the GeoWorld tools.<br /><br />I would not purchase again mainly due to the fact that product is of lesser quality than the GeoWorld product. However for gift giving, it is probably better due to the goggles included (for safety purposes).

Wouldn't stay together due to the fact that some of the pieces were pressed into the clay so that they would not return to correct shape after removal.

I gave it to my nine year old nephew and he said it was okay he just wish it had a little bit more stuff to it to make it seem more interesting to him. He wasn't as impressed with it as I thought he was going to be and I didn't see it being that great of a thing either OK for the money but just an average product

This is definitely for older kids, the plaster is so hard that my kids had a pretty difficult time hammering the Dino skeleton out, they got bored after a short time. The mess it created was also not worth the effort! The dinosaur skeleton inside was pretty flimsy once extracted as well.