Borax Crystals

There have been lots of books checked out about rocks & minerals lately. We recently read about borax in the National Audubon Society First Field Guide Rocks and Minerals, and talked about how we use it in our laundry soap. Then we came across an activity in The Kids Winter Cottage Book for growing our own "icicles" using borax. 

 We gathered the supplies and gave it a go. 

All you need is a tall glass jar, string, pencil, paper clip, borax and water.

~ For every cup of water you mix in a quarter cup of borax stirring to dissolve as much as possible.
~ Tie the pencil to one end of the string and at the other end attach the paper clip. Adjust so the clip does not touch the bottom of the jar when the pencil is placed across the top of the jar.
~ Wait about 24 hours (good time to discuss the concept of 24 hours with Dylan). Pull out your icicle, cut off the paper clip and hang up to dry.
~ We had extra crystals growing in the bottom of our jar so we scraped them up and set them on a plate to dry out.

They look really neat under the microscope too.

My friend had the great idea of using a pipe cleaner to create a snowflake shape then place that in the borax solution. Thinking we are going to try that next.

There are a few other activities in the Winter Cottage Book we are looking forward to trying as winter moves in... fun stuff.