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With winter now in full swing, we are stuck indoors on many days. Even though it doesn’t snow where we live, I’ve been trying to bring some of the magic of winter to my kids. These crystallized snowflakes were a great opportunity to appreciate the magic of snow, create a beautiful craft, AND see some science in action all at the same time!
Note: For more winter crafts your kids will love, see my Winter Activities for Kids page.
Here are the materials we used to make this beautiful crystallized snowflake:
- Borax
- Chenille stems
- Scissors
- Empty glass jars
- String
- Pencils
First the kids and I each fashioned a chenille stem into a “snowflake” shape. I connected a string to each snowflake and suspended it from a pencil into the jar.
After the snowflakes were in position, I put enough water to fill the jar into a pot of water and turned the heat to high. Once the water started boiling, I added borax 1 TBS at a time until it no longer dissolved in the water. In our case, that took about 8 TBS of borax for 1 quart of water. (Note: I did this twice since we had two jars.)
After my water and borax solution was ready, I poured the water into the jars. This is what the jars looked like right after we added the water.
We left the jars in the kitchen window overnight. And here’s what they looked like when we woke up the next morning!
We were amazed to see how crystals had formed up the sides of the glass.
And when we pulled out our chenille stem snowflakes, they were covered in large, beautiful, borax crystals. Here are the snowflakes made by my kids and myself.
More winter learning resources
More posts about snowflakes from Gift of Curiosity:
- Snowflake crafts for kids
- Open ended snowflake craft
- Learning about snowflakes
- Puffy paint snowman
- Plastic bottle snowman craft
- Snowflake scratch art
For more winter crafts your kids will love, see my Winter Activities for Kids page and my Winter Activities Pinterest Board.
What a cute idea! I always have borax around because I make my own laundry soap. I’ll have to give this experiment a try!
So cool! I want to do more science project with my girls and I think this one would be really cool to try. Thanks for sharing on We Made That!
Perfect timing! I was looking for a crystal project for the letter C this week. Thanks so much for making it easy!
Those look pretty cool!
Thanks for linking up to Sharing Saturday!
This looks awesome! Can’t wait to try it. Will probably blog about it and link back to you!
How very clever and pretty. Thanks for sharing.
So all the water is gone overnight out of the jars? How long until they were completely dry? Did they flake off at all? I have many kids and this will be great to do with them!!!
Thanks for the idea!!
Actually, the water wasn’t gone at all. But the borax had left the water to crystallize on the chenille stems. It was pretty cool! The crystals do flake off somewhat though if you are not careful with them. Enjoy making them!
I want to do this with a little group of five preschoolers. Do I have to do multiple batches of the Borax solution, or can I just make one big batch? (I’m asking because you said you did that twice since you had two jars.) Thanks!
I had two jars, but was able to hang the kids’ snowflakes together in one jar. I would suggest being careful that they don’t touch when you put them in the solution because otherwise they will stick together once the crystals form. That being said, you can make just one big batch of the borax solution and pour it into multiple jars. There’s no real need to make separate solutions for each jar. Just make enough to fill the jars you will need!
So fun, we love making borax crystals! I featured it today on the kids co-op at Housing A Forest. Hope you link up again this week!
This looks like so much fun! We will be featuring your post in our Share It Saturday link Up party tomorrow. We would love if you stopped by again and shared…We love to see your creativity! We’ll also be sharing our featured posts on our FB page.
We have also created a Share It Saturday Group Pinterest board and are welcoming all participants to join up in collaboration…where you can feel free to pin up your posts and gain lots of great ideas, as well as potentially gain quite a few new viewers! If you are interested in joining us, the link will be on our post tomorrow. Hope to see you again soon on Share It Saturday 🙂
Colleen at Sugar Aunts
I bought Borax to do this a couple of years ago, and STILL need to do it. Thanks for linking it up to remind me of the fun this is.
We just made these a few weeks ago and my girls LOVED seeing the results. It is a really neat process. Thanks for sharing on the Sunday Showcase – pinned to our group board.
I love this idea. I was thinking about doing hearts for Vday. Can you add food coloring?
I have not personally tried to use food coloring but I’ve seen others do it, so I expect it would work.