Small gold for 1st graders class demonstration

[B Street Blacksmith]

Hi,
My youngest daughter is in 1st grade, and after a long discussion with her teacher, I would like to have a small prospecting demonstration for her class before the end of the year.

This is what I'm looking for:

A good, reliable source, for a small amount of small gold (or cons with small gold in it) for a demonstration and panning session with the class.

I'm disabled, and don't have a lot of money to spend, but would LOVE to get enough together to be able to give each kid (there are 22) a couple small pieces of gold to take home afterwards.

Any ideas yall?

 

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[IMAUDIGGER]

First graders are pretty young. I would be concerned about the little kids swallowing anything I gave them to take home (including the gold vial).

I did something similar for about 15 kids during a birthday party.

If I did it over again, I would have prepared a little plastic vial for each of them with a little bit of flour gold in it ahead of time. Doesn't take much to impress most people.
You don't want to have to spend time panning and separating every kids gold.

I would have several panning stations, each with a small coffee can of clean sand with a single picker in it. Something that would be difficult to lose, yet would not be the end of the world if you did.
Have them pan into something that is easy to retrieve the material so you can start over again with the next kid. Make it a contest...if you can find the bigger nugget, you win a vial of gold...
You need a couple parents to give you a hand...This would be very low budget. I'd skip the concentrates with the 1st graders, it's usually marked up above spot price anyway.

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

First graders are pretty young. I would be concerned about the little kids swallowing anything I gave them to take home (including the gold vial).

I did something similar for about 15 kids during a birthday party.

If I did it over again, I would have prepared a little plastic vial for each of them with a little bit of flour gold in it ahead of time. Doesn't take much to impress most people.
You don't want to have to spend time panning and separating every kids gold.

I would have several panning stations, each with a small coffee can of clean sand with a single picker in it. Something that would be difficult to lose, yet would not be the end of the world if you did.
Have them pan into something that is easy to retrieve the material so you can start over again with the next kid. Make it a contest...if you can find the bigger nugget, you win a vial of gold...
You need a couple parents to give you a hand...This would be very low budget. I'd skip the concentrates with the 1st graders, it's usually marked up above spot price anyway.

This is pretty close to what I'm wanting to do. If I got concentrates, I'd pan it beforehand, and remove the gold. Then put a piece or two of gold into each cup with sand and black sand (one cup for each student). We are looking to have several parents there to help as well.

At the end of the day, we would be making a laminated card with each kids gold inside, with their names and the date on a piece of paper in it as well. That is what they would take home (the card would be about the size of a playing card).

I would be really happy to get cons (so I could have the fun of panning it first) but would also be fine with just buying a small amount of placer gold, and seeding my own sand for them to run.

 

[kcm]

You might consider contacting the website below and explaining what you're wanting to do. Maybe they can help.
Dirthogg Paydirt Gold Concentrates

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

You might consider contacting the website below and explaining what you're wanting to do. Maybe they can help.
Dirthogg Paydirt Gold Concentrates

Is Dirthogg a reputable concentrate seller (I know this is a misnomer, but you know what I mean). Do they have decent value per bag? I know that I'm likely to pay 2x or more than the gold is worth, but dont want to buy a bag that just has a few little flakes of micron in it, as that would make for a pretty crappy demo for the kids.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

For first graders, you could almost smash a lead fishing weight and paint it gold colored and use it for the demonstration panning.

 

[kcm]

Like I said, talk to them and tell them what you're doing. It never hurts to ask.

And as for the value, I'm also a member on another forum - some folks who make their living at prospecting - and a darn good living at that! Even they have been pleasantly surprised with DirtHogg concentrates.

I wish I could vouch for them, but I've never held a gold pan in my hands.....YET!! Still learning.

Have heard nothing but praise about their product - even from the folks buying it at retail!!

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

For first graders, you could almost smash a lead fishing weight and paint it gold colored and use it for the demonstration panning.

Yeah, I thought about that, but would prefer to give them a real thrill. And, even with gold paint, doesn't shine enough to POP for me. I'd prefer to throw some money at it, and make it memorable for them.

I do have some good little pieces of gold that I found out here in TX, but I cant bear to use those in this demo..... They are my little treasures (considering the amount of work it took to get them out of the scarce bit of gold we have around me).

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

Like I said, talk to them and tell them what you're doing. It never hurts to ask.

And as for the value, I'm also a member on another forum - some folks who make their living at prospecting - and a darn good living at that! Even they have been pleasantly surprised with DirtHogg concentrates.

I wish I could vouch for them, but I've never held a gold pan in my hands.....YET!! Still learning.

Have heard nothing but praise about their product - even from the folks buying it at retail!!

Thanks kcm. I'll keep them in mind!

 

[RustyGold]

I would not have any children handle lead on any level. My $.02

 

[kcm]

I like the "laminated card" idea - sounds great!! And to make certain everything is relatively fair (you know how kids can be!!), wouldn't be a bad idea to pre-measure plain sand to a small but equal amount per child, then salt the sand with a little gold. Each kid gets to find gold, no kid gets jealous because someone else got more than they did, and it would be the identical skill level per child.

I grew up in SE Texas. Never even knew that there was still natural gold out there in the world. Barely even heard acknowledgement of the California Gold Rush - not to mention all the other rushes in US history! ...But in all fairness, I wasn't interested in "history", so I might have just daydreamed through it.

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

I would not have any children handle lead on any level. My $.02

Kids handle a small amount of lead all the time. I.E. Fishing with lead weights. Drinking groundwater (that has lead in it), etc.

Also, if I did go that route, they wouldn't actually be handling the lead itself, as it would be "salted" into the sand by me, and the would not be picking it up out of the pan.

But this is all moot, as I don't want to go that route anyway.

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

I like the "laminated card" idea - sounds great!! And to make certain everything is relatively fair (you know how kids can be!!), wouldn't be a bad idea to pre-measure plain sand to a small but equal amount per child, then salt the sand with a little gold. Each kid gets to find gold, no kid gets jealous because someone else got more than they did, and it would be the identical skill level per child.

I grew up in SE Texas. Never even knew that there was still natural gold out there in the world. Barely even heard acknowledgement of the California Gold Rush - not to mention all the other rushes in US history! ...But in all fairness, I wasn't interested in "history", so I might have just daydreamed through it.

Exactly! Doing it this way would keep the jealousy to a minimum, and give them all a little keepsake that they could keep forever (though, knowing 1st graders, most of the cards would be lost by the end of the day).

Both of my little girls (1st grade and 7th grade) LOVE prospecting.....I wish I had known about it when I was their age. Had to grow up before I caught the FEVER!

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

What do you guys think of this:
Gold Fever Prospecting Nuggets by the Gram

I know the markup is still horrible, but cant seem to find a better, more affordable, option to just buy the nuggets.

 

[kcm]

I'd certainly be happy with that size!! However, would it make any difference to a 6-year-old whether the gold is small nugget, large flake or visible flour? ...Trying to think back to when I was 6, but then that's not really "normal". By the time I was 8 1/2, I was helping out my Dad in his sheet metal machine shop (sweeping floor, mostly). By the time I was 10, I was reading blueprints and running the vertical mill by myself. So for me, not a normal kid.

 

[BrettCo124]

I think this is a cool idea and I wish I did fun things like this in school. No question, you're going to want to do the real deal. Painted lead would completely ruin the experience (sorry, just my honest opinion).
Why go fake if you can offer the real experience and it would cost maybe 20 bucks?

For a small classroom demo, kcm's idea is exactly what I was thinking. That way it's fair, it's real, and it's fun. Also, sorry to any company that offers pay dirt, but before I knew we had vendors on here, I've used eBay many times and looked at reputable sellers and feedback, and have won bids for a very decent price with plenty of gold. It's just another option to save money on, and it's worked for me.

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

I think this is a cool idea and I wish I did fun things like this in school. No question, you're going to want to do the real deal. Painted lead would completely ruin the experience (sorry, just my honest opinion).
Why go fake if you can offer the real experience and it would cost maybe 20 bucks?

For a small classroom demo, kcm's idea is exactly what I was thinking. That way it's fair, it's real, and it's fun.

I wish I did too. I'll be showing them how to pan, explaining how to use a sluice, sniper dredge, classifiers,etc. Will also being in my new nugget bucket, and showing them my blue bowl in action. Will be a fun day!

 

[BrettCo124]

I wish I did too. I'll be showing them how to pan, explaining how to use a sluice, sniper dredge, classifiers,etc. Will also being in my new nugget bucket, and showing them my blue bowl in action. Will be a fun day!

Really cool idea! Get kids outside more and away from their phones (I'm one of those kids by the way, but I've been fortunate enough to keep up with hobbies that interest me, such as this one).

Do you have the nugget bucket? I have it too but never used it. Curious to see if it does the job! Hope it all works out for you.

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

Really cool idea! Get kids outside more and away from their phones (I'm one of those kids by the way, but I've been fortunate enough to keep up with hobbies that interest me, such as this one).

Do you have the nugget bucket? I have it too but never used it. Curious to see if it does the job! Hope it all works out for you.

Ordered. Haven't recieved it yet. Here's to hoping!

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Gold is going for about $2.54/grain at spot price. If you were to give each kid a 1 grain gold flake, that would be approx. $50 for the class.

Matt at Gold Rush Nuggets is a reputable gold dealer. I have done business with him on numerous occasions.
He usually deals in larger sized gold, but I know he probably has enough small gold to satisfy your needs.

As I said before, you don't want to get involved actually separating each kids gold. That was my mistake..."keep what you find". Didn't work well.

They did have a pretty good time trying to pan and they were older kids too.

I say go for it. It will be something some of them will remember for the rest of their lives.