Making Crystals: A Book Inspired Science Project

Do you like doing fun science projects with your kids? Making Crystals is so fun, and very simple to do!We have been having the best time reading Scavenger Scout: Rock Hound by Shelby Wild and Yana Popova, and we have become very inspired to make the coolest rock crystals with some simple ingredients that are found in your home! Let me share with you how to make these at home with your kids, while you read this awesome book!

Making Crystals Science Project

Supplies Needed:

Method for making your own crystals with your kids:

Start by gathering your supplies together, and boiling your water.For every 1/2 cup of water, you need 1 TBSP of Borax, completely dissolved.We measured out 2 cups of boiling water, and 4 TBSP's of Borax. We also had a larger measuring cup, that could hold 4 cups of water, and we added 8 TBSP's into it.My daughter loved pouring the water, and counting out the TBSP's of Borax all on her own, now that she has turned 8, she is loving all the hands-on projects we have been doing, and she is taking the lead!Make sure to really get all the Borax completely dissolved, by patiently stirring and stirring until it is clear. Adding it slowly can work, however adding it all at once, is fine as well, you just need to stir for a long time.Once your borax is dissolved, and your water is as clear as you can get it, (a little bit of powder at the bottom is ok) you can add in your food coloring! With this, you want your water to be very concentrated with food coloring, so make it look almost black with color.

Creating your base for the crystals to grow

Now comes the fun part! Take your pipe cleaner, and twist, and form it into any shape you would like. For our first crystal, we wrapped the pink one around our fingers, and the second blue one, we made into a random shape, more close together.

You will then want to tie your sting to your pipe cleaner, and then measure how long the string should be from the stick.

You want the pipe cleaner to be in the middle of the cup, not touching the sides or the bottom. 

Lower your soon-to-be crystal into the liquid, and set in a safe place, where it will be undisturbed for 12-24 hours (even longer if you have the patience!).Here we are mixing up the second batch, while the first pink pipe cleaner was all done.

12-24 hours later...

After letting them stay fully emerged in the water for 12 hours, they had become crystalized! We left them in the solution for 24 hours to let them get as big as we could.They were so beautiful, and we were so amazed at how easy and simple this project was, and how fun much too. We can tell from our experiment, that if your pipe cleaners are closer together, more crystals will form tighter. However, we really loved the look of the spiral one, which then became a pendulum for mommy, as we had just learned about Pendulums and Galileo last month!

 Thank you for checking out our latest Book Inspired Science Project Today, we hope you liked it, and if you give this a try with your kids, please comment below, or share your creations on Instagram and tag us @alexandra.derry!

Grab your own copy of Scavenger Scout: Rock Hound by Shelby Wilde and Yana Popova Today!

 

Til next time,Breathe deeply and enjoy building your masterpiece with scissors and glue and crystals too!~Alexandra  

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