Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Brittle Stars - a craft project

We recently read about sea stars in our science book.  The chapter included a simple and cute craft project to go along with it.  We added salt to boiling water until saturation (must be truly saturated to the point that no more salt can be dissolved), colored the water, and poured it into wide mouth glass jars/bowls.  To that, we added cotton string (5 six-inch pieces tied together) with the ends hanging over the edge.  We taped ours to make sure they stayed.  Then let it sit undisturbed for a few days.  The end result is a pretty "brittle star" made of colored salt crystals.

Mika's blue star

Sam's yellow star

The project seemed a bit young and simplistic for my older kids, but they enjoyed it.  We'll be revisiting crystals when we study geology this coming year.  This project reminded me to be sure to grow some salt and alum crystals again.  There are photos of our first attempt here and here. They were fun, and Josh didn't get to enjoy them the first time around.

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