[Rewarded Review] Very Cool Experiment For Younger Ones Too

The National Geographic Crystal Garden Kit is such a fun way to explore science at home! You get to "grow" colorful crystals on little paper trees, and the transformation happens in just a few hours, which keeps kids excited and engaged. It's easy to set up, and watching the crystals form feels almost magical. Perfect for curious kids (and adults too!) who love hands-on activities. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to learn about science while creating something beautiful together.

Junk

If you're thinking of crystals like shiny and hard rock like substance you'll be sorely disappointed. In fact the only thing which forms is foam like which disintegrates at the pressure of a light touch. Kids will be sorely disappointed.

Disappointing

It’s more of a soft foam like substance as opposed to crystals. They fell off easily and didn’t pick up at much color as we hoped. Should have came with the dropper to apply liquid to trees but I’m not convinced that was the issue.

[Rewarded Review] Cool but could be more fun

For the price, I wouldn’t buy this again. The markers weren’t very good so we used other markers. Crystals were slower to form than expected. I feel like this could’ve been a DIY project versus paying for the packaging, etc. Not super impressed.

[Rewarded Review] Beautiful and educational

My family loves national geographic science kits. We have the volcano, rock tumbling, science magic and dino fossil one and recently added the crystal garden kit. We have not yet used it, but like all the other national geographic kits, this one comes with some educational material and detailed instructions. The content of the kit appears of great quality and i am sure my daughters will grown two very beautiful crystal trees.

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[Rewarded Review] Fun and easy!

This is a fun science kit that has everything needed to create two trees. The project is simple and my 8 year old was able to figure it out himself. The markers are not the best quality, so he wound up using our own washable markers. The crystals started growing nearly right away, and by the next morning the tree was fully grown. My son was a bit disappointed that the crystals were a foam material rather than real crystals, but he had a fun time with it regardless!

[Rewarded Review] Perfect for those little builders and scientist!

Still in the process of growing but so far so good! This is the perfect little gift for holidays or birthdays. My son has ASD and ADHD loves to build things and thinks this is the coolest thing ever. Its well worth it!

[Rewarded Review] Fun and easy project, just very fragile

I have two homeschooled boys so I'm always looking for fun activities to add to my schedule. The instructions are easy-to-follow and we started seeing progress after about 30-minutes. The whole process took about 8- hours, my boys were excited because they didn't have to wait days to see progress like other projects we've done. We even made a time-lapse video to document the growth progress, which was fun to look back on.

[Rewarded Review] Educational and Fun Rolled into One!

This National Geographic Crystal Growing Kit is easy to do and comes complete with everything you need to create two crystal trees. You get two trays stands 2 trees, 5 colored washable markers, and 1 bottle of crystal growing liquid. The instructions are straightforward so that an 8 year old and up with supervision can easily create these crystal trees in about 30 minutes and after 6-8 hours the crystal trees will be complete. I love how this comes with a learning guide so you and your child (children) can learn how crystals are formed. I also like how National Geographic even included a Geode specimen inside. Overall a great Stem Kit that’s not only educational but fun too!

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[Rewarded Review] Nice set to make with kids

This Crystal Garden by National Geographic came in a nice box. The box included materials to make 2 crystal trees, which is perfect to share between siblings. Also, there was a learning guide and a genuine little geode included. No additional tools or materials needed extra

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Major Disappointment

I’ve never seen my 6 year old more disappointed and upset about a project in my life. She had a science fair project at camp. We did this the day before since instructions say it takes 6-8 hours for crystals to form. They formed only on the edges of the branches on only one tree, the other did not form at all. What did form ended up crumbing off during the car ride. When she got to school the office called me that she was inconsolable because the tree was almost bare. Also, these do not look like crystals, it’s more like dry foam with no sparkle.

We picked these up for our girls. I homeschool them and science is so much fun to donwith them. This kit includes a booklet where you can learn a little something about crystals. Very fun and user friendly. You have to get really creative and think about placement of colors and enough in one area in order to get them to come through. The crystals grew surprisingly fast all within that same day. Splitting and using all thr liquid evenly isnimportant as that is what makes the crystals grow. I wish it came with a little more. The trees turned put beautifully!

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Great project for parents and kids to do together

Coloring was a bit of a pain, and some of the markers were running out of color (green) by the time we were finishing but the resulting product was beautiful and just like the picture on the box. I had visitors inquiring where we got the kit. I'd highly recommend. Note that you'll have to throw them away after a few days, as the crystals fall off of the deteriorating paper.

[Rewarded Review] Such a simple and fun project for kids and parents

Such a simple and fun project for kids and parents. I’m actually surprised how easy this was to do. It also wasn’t very messy at all considering most of these things require a lot of cleanup afterwords. The instructions were really simple and we also learned a lot in the process. We each got our own tree to decorate and design. I was shocked within about 30 minutes it already started to grow. We did it at night so the next day we went back and looked and it was completely fuzzy. This project was fun for everybody in the house. It’s really fascinating and I am still shocked at how fast it grew.

[Rewarded Review] Just Ok

We really had high hopes for this, maybe too high. The product does what it says but the "crystals" that grow are foam that disappear in your fingers. I guess the tradeoff from the hard crystal experiments is that this one happens quickly, which was fun! The colors blend so you can't have details. The only thing that was a COMPLETE fail was the geode specimen! In my pic it's in the little bag and it looks like a chip of dirt! I do recommend this for the fun of how fast the "crystals" grow.

[Rewarded Review] Fantastic kit for kids of all ages!

As a homeschool family, we are always looking for things to add to lessons to make it more interesting. This hands on kit on making crystals is one for the books for sure. Easy to use and great instructions included. Perfect example of chemical change and reactions in real time. Educational values to the side, even for fun this kit will have kids asking to make more. Definitely happy with the product and would suggest to any parent looking for wholesome fun and learning all wrapped up into one.

[Rewarded Review] Entertaining but somewhat disappointing

I love the fact that you can grow your own crystal tree. I love that it takes some time and effort for the kids to prep their trees and how excited they were to see what happens. I did not love the fact that the markers ran out of ink or that the instructions come with safety guidelines that made me nervous for my 7 and 5 year old. The advertisement states that crystals grow within 30 minutes and can be complete by 6 hours. For us, it took about 24 hours but that is not a big deal. It actually built up the anticipation of what the trees will look like and the kids had fun checking on them. After 24 hours, one of the trees had hardly any crystals and the other had a nice amount but the crystals are very delicate and powdery. When we moved the trees or the kids touched them they just fell off. All in all it was a fun family project but I wouldn't buy it again.

[Rewarded Review] Very cool to watch

This National Geographic Crystal Growing kit was super fun to do with the kids. They had fun coloring the trees. Only thing about the coloring part is the markers do not last long. We could not finish with the green and pink markers it came with. We had to use our own to finish, but no biggie. It was really fun watching the crystals grow. I thought they would be kind of a hard consistency but it’s very soft and easily smushed. I would recommend putting a paper towel under the trees because as the “crystals” start to fall off they all do not make it in the tree base and smudged when cleaning up.

[Rewarded Review] Not what we expected

My kids feel disappointed with the outcome of this craft. The process of coloring and readying the trees, then watching it all "grow" was a lot of fun for them. The finished product fell short. Let me first say that I was surprised with how full and colorful it came out however, it is NOT crystals. Everything on the packaging, instructions and book lead us all to believe it was going to be crystal-ish at least but it's not. It falls apart and look/feels very similar to the artificial snow kits. They were looking forward to having something SOLID to show off and keep but they did not last. If you don't mind the material misrepresentation then it's still a really fun craft. I wouldn't recommend though due to the personal disappointment we had.

[Rewarded Review] It actually grows

It actually grows like it says it will. This is a really cool project to do with your kids. It’s really simple setting up. The kit includes all you need. My daughter and I colored the trees, different branches different colors. A few of the markers that come with the kit dried out really fast. It’s only two trees to color but two of the markers dried out before we could finish. It comes with 5 markers. The liquid that is used to pour on the trees after you color and spread out the branches, doesn’t last to a 2nd round. It says to pour over trees completely and save some for the next time. It’s only enough for one time. I would recommend this kit. It’s a pretty cool project. As you pour the liquid over the trees, the trees rise a bit so you know something is working. After about 30 min to an hour you see the fluffy stuff. It hasn’t harden yet and turned into crystals and it’s been almost 24 hours. We will give it more time.