Buddy Boy is interested in crystals this summer so we grew some. There are instructions for the salt sculptures and rock candy and a lot of other things as well.
It was fun to watch the salt crystals grow and spread. The salt water traveled up the string and dripped down on to the plate. The crystals grew on the string and spread on the mug as well. I hope that he will recognize the process when we visit caves later this summer or fall. There were very few large crystals, mostly crystal fuzz, but you could watch them grow and see the process as the water dripped off the ends of the string.
Here we have a few sugar crystals. There are a lot of rock candy tutorials out there, but there are a few key things that made it work for us. The first is that you need to have a syrup that is concentrated enough for crystals to develop. The typical 2 cup sugar to 1 cup water didn't seem to be enough. I used about 3 cups of sugar in 1 cup boiling water. You also need to dip your sticks in the syrup and let them dry completely to get seed crystals that the candy can then grow on. We used big popsicle sticks. I added a little color and peppermint flavor to make it a little tastier and waited... and waited... This is a week or so and it is still going.
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