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How to Make Crystals With Borax

Children can create fanciful shapes and use them as a frame work to grow clear or colored crystals using a common household cleaning product. The crystals grow overnight, allowing children to see first hand the crystal-formation process which creates many types of rocks.

Things You'll Need

Pipe cleaners
Wide-mouth jar
String
Stick
Boiling water
Borax
Spoon

Instructions

- 1
  Make a shape out of pipe cleaners that will fit inside the jar. This will be the shape of your crystal.
- 2
  Tie the shape to a piece of string. Place a small stick, such as pencil or craft stick, across the mouth of the jar. Tie the other end of the string to the pencil, so that the pipe-cleaner shape hangs completely inside the jar 1 to 2 inches below the rim.
- 3
  Remove the stick and the shape from the jar.
- 4
  Fill the jar with boiling water to 1 inch below the rim.
- 5
  Add borax stirring constantly until you have some borax on the bottom of the jar, which will not dissolve when stirred. This is a sign that the solution has become supersaturated and no more borax can be dissolved.
- 6
  Put the pipe cleaner shape back into the jar.
- 7
  Wait overnight. The pipe cleaners will be covered with crystals after 12 hours in the supersaturated solution.

Rocks & Minerals