Crystal Ornaments

I've seen this experiment numerous times over the past few years while looking through science activities for kindergarten and for Monkey. I always thought, I'll get to that someday. Well we did it today and I wish we had done it ages ago! Not only is it very easy but it is awesome to watch. It doesn't take too long for the results and they are amazing. 

Christmas is my absolute favourite time of the year, so you will probably see a lot of Christmas related activities from now until then. Hence the crystal ornaments! It certainly wouldn't have to be Christmas to do this experiment, I just think it worked out perfectly for me that it is :)

Supplies: Borax, string, glass jars, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, measuring cup and tablespoon, mixing bowl, kettle

The first step was to twist the pipe cleaners into shapes; in our case Christmas shapes. 

Next, I tied a string to the top of each shape. I left it long enough that I would be able to tie it into a loop afterwards. Then I lowered the pipe cleaner shapes into the jars and taped the string to a popsicle stick, which sat across the mouth of the jar. This took some time as you have to be sure that the pipe cleaner is not touching the sides or the bottom of the jar, otherwise it will get stuck once the crystals start to form. I ended up having to trim the snowflake and the spiral in order for them to fit. 

Now that the pipe cleaner shapes were ready to go in the glass jars, we made the Borax and water solution. To do this,

I mixed three cups of boiling water with nine tablespoons of Borax. 

Stir the solution until the Borax dissolves

completely and the liquid is almost crystal clear, then pour into the glass jars. Monkey usually loves helping with counting, measuring, and stirring, but he wasn't interested today. 

In the end I had to make two batches of Borax solution (a total of six cups of water and eighteen tablespoons of Borax) to fill the four glass jars. 

Then we waited. Luckily it didn't take long for us to see the results!! In less than an hour we could see crystals on the pipe cleaners, and in just a few hours they were covered. 

I let them sit in the Borax solution overnight and then drained the liquid out in the morning. It took a few hours for the ornaments to dry and then I removed the popsicle sticks, made a loop with the string, and hung them in the window. 

Unfortunately, you can't tell from the picture, but they do sparkle a little bit in the light. We have them right next to our tree and they look so nice! 

This was an awesome experiment and I was surprised at how fast it worked. I will definitely do this again. 

Mar