What you need:
- Light blue or white pipe cleaners
- Scissors
- Glass jar
- Pencil
- Boiling water
- Borax
What to do:
- Twist pipe cleaners together to form a snowflake. We made a very simple shape, but encourage older children to create a more complicated design.
- Wrap a pencil perpendicular to one of the extending pipe cleaners.
- Trim all pipe cleaners, except the one connected to the pencil, so that the snowflake so it is at least half an inch shorter than the jar’s diameter. A snowflake that barely fits in the jar will get stuck after the crystals have formed.
- Ask an adult to fill a glass jar three-fourths full with boiling water.
- For each cup of boiling water poured into the jar, add 3 tablespoons of Borax and stir. Do not ingest Borax. The solution should be a little foggy at first.
- Place the snowflake in the jar so that the pencil rests on the jar. It’s OK if some Borax later settles on the bottom of the jar.
- Be patient! Let the snowflake and jar sit for at least five hours before removing. The crystals will form as the water cools.
