Your child will love this borax crystal hearts activity!

If you’re looking for a way to help your child fall in love with science, try this experiment and make borax crystal hearts.

Most people are happy to find out they can make crystals at home. It’s an easy process that is fun to watch for all ages.

Since Valentine’s Day is approaching, making crystal hearts are great for decorations and gifts. Kids will love watching the crystals form too. Isn’t love what Valentine’s Day is all about?

This experiment only calls for a few supplies, but an adult will need to help a child out. Since this experiment uses borax, which isn’t entirely safe for kids to handle. A little adult guidance will help them be safe and successful.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A jar
• Borax
• Boiling water
• Red pipe cleaners
• Craft sticks

The first step is to boil water and dissolve borax into it. Depending on how big your jars are will determine how much water you need to have. In general, you should add 3 tablespoons of borax powder for every 1 cup of boiled water into a jar.

Adults should be the only people doing the first step. The water is hot and borax is a chemical that should not be handled by children.

While this is happening, the child can begin making hearts made out of red pipe cleaners. Then, they’ll need another to twist around the popsicle stick and connect to the heart.

When making the pipe cleaner hearts, make sure they’re small enough for the crystals to form. Also, the pipe cleaner needs to be in the borax and water solution. The connecting pipe cleaner needs to be long enough to immerse the heart in there.

Next, the adult should put the pipe cleaner heart into the jar. The popsicle stick should easily fit across the lid.

Let it sit for 24 hours, but feel free to see how your crystal hearts are progressing throughout the day. You’ll soon notice crystals forming all around the pipe cleaner!

After the full day, your crystal hearts are ready to take out.

These are great for Valentine’s Day cards, making a garland, or even giving them as a little gift to loved ones.

No matter what you decide to do with your homemade crystals, it will be fun for you and your child to experiment together.

If you give this one a try we want to know how it goes for you! Send your feedback, photos, etc. to contributor@newsymom.com.