How to Make Crystals for Kids

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Making crystals with your kids can be a fun way to teach geology, or a great accompaniment to your earth science curriculum. Crystals can form from basic ingredients found in your kitchen. You can make sugar crystals into giant colorful crystals easily. All you need is a glass jar with a lid, sugar, food coloring, tape and a piece of twine.

Things You'll Need

• Granulated sugar Glass jar with a lid Food coloring Tape Twine

Instructions

1. Find a glass jar with a lid. Canning jars make the perfect crystal-growing jars and come in many sizes. Make sure that you find a jar that you can see through easily, as you will not be opening the jar once the crystals start to form. Tape a piece of twine the length of your jar to the underside of the jar lid. Make sure that the twine is hanging down far enough to touch the bottom of the jar. Your twine can be any weight, but a thicker weight twine will yield thicker crystals.

2. Next, pour about 1 cup of granulated sugar into the jar, and mix 1 cup of water into it. Drop in 4 to 5 drops of food coloring, whatever color you like. Stir the mixture well until all of the ingredients are combined completely. Then, screw the cap onto the jar tightly and sit your jar on a countertop where it will not be disturbed.

3. Keep an eye on your jar. Over the next few weeks you will start to see colorful crystals forming on the twine. You can take pictures periodically of the crystal growth and make a chart showing the rate at which your crystals are growing. After the crystal start to form, you can even add a few drops of food coloring of a different color and watch crystals of that color form on top of the first color.