Geode Smashing

During the last holiday season we smashed geodes. The kids really liked it so I purchase more geodes online. One vendor advertised six larger geodes for $18 (with shipping) and another vendor sold 10 small geodes for $10 (free shipping). 

I was hoping to gently break the geodes open like we had done last time. The goal being to break a geode into two nice halves rather than shattering it into small pieces. We started with a large geode. Bentley held the rock chisel while Lincoln hammered at it with a rubber mallet. No success at opening it up. Jake tried next. No success. Bentley, Viva, and Evan took turns. I hammered at it. We could not get any geode to crack open using a chisel and hammer.

Viva, Lincoln, and Evan went back inside. I decided to quit using a chisel and just hammer directly on one of the larger geodes. I quickly cracked one open! At this point I didn't care that it wasn't two nice halves. Bentley and Jake cracked/shattered one large geode each. I convinced Lincoln, Evan, and Viva to give it another go. They had good luck, too. 

The smaller geodes were not easy to crack open. Only one, possibly two of them, had any empty cavity in them. The rest were solid which means they were not geodes since by definition a geode is any HOLLOW nodule. I was not at all happy with the smaller geodes, but Jake and Bentley had a great time hammering away at them. 

Bentley told me "I spent a lot of time out there and I got a lot of satisfying things." Here's his bin of satisfying things: