Diamond Mining

At the begining of June whilst D was in Caopenhagen and Sweeden the children and I drove (about 4 hours) to a place called Herkimer in Upstate New York. There they mine a crystal gem called a Herkimer Diamond. It is 7.5 on the hardness scale so can be used for anything that requires Quarts (which is 7) and has a unique shape. It has 2 points and 18 facets. We could keep everything that we found. J and I each found a complete (though tiny) Herkimer Diamond. W found lots of drusy and teeny diamonds attached to a rock. M found an old tin can top! Well, he was excited at least.

Herkimer held their home school day on a Monday, so we stayed overnight on the Sunday night in a KOA Kabin with our friends in the next two cabins. Then on Monday night our friends left and we stayed so that I did not have to do the drive home after an exhausting day. We all had a great time and we made some knew friends - some who live on Staton Island so we are really hoping that we get to catch up with them again over the summer.

The children eached paired up with a friend and sluiced for gems, they excitedly found quite a few and then got to do it all again for fossils. I was suprised at how many fossils and sharks teeth they found, it was very cool and they were delighted with their 'finds'.






When we got home the children cleaned, sorted and analysed their rocks, Gems and Fossils and then created a little display with tags describing their pieces.



The children also go to break a Geode, work with a group on a Green Earh project and make jewlery with a Herkimer Diamond. - oh and incredibly Monday was the only day that did not rain that week, so we were very luck. The children also had a swim in the pool at the campground but the water was freezing cold and I just watched!