Make Salt Crystals

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Unless you are a senior citizen or clean clothes for a living, you probably don't know what bluing is. I am neither. So when I ran across this integral component to growing salt cyrstals, I had to go to Google. Apparently as white clothes start to fade, the trace amount of blue emakes the clothes seem whiter to the human eye. These days, bleach has pretty much replace bluing as an household item.

In the state of Iowa, Mrs. Stewart's, the most widely carried brand of bluing, is only found in three store chains. None of them were where I lived. Therefore, this project got shelved for nearly two years.

  

As we were on our yearly drive to Texas to visit my

brother, Arik and sister, Heather, I insisted that we went on a slight detour to pick up the bluing. I figured that if it took several days to see the crystals grow, it might be a fun thing for the kids to monitor throughout the week.

When the time came, I gathered up all the components to make the salt crystals (Table salt, bluing, ammonia and a piece of charcoal, plus food coloring).

 

Then Then we poured the liquid over the piece of charcoal on a large plate. As nothing happened immediately, the kids quickly lost interest. So I moved the plate out of the way and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Until we left.

At the time, I was disappointed, thinking that the crystals would have overtaken the charcoal much more than they did. But in the end, as I look back at the pictures, I can see that there actually was quite a bit of growth. This project did hold the kids' attention and they enjoyed seeing how much it had grown each day. My only suggestion is to make it clear that it is a time-inclusive project and not to expect immediate results.