Last month my son was thrilled to finally start Kindergarten. His favorite class? STEM! He’s all about science. Now he’s pretty excited to conduct science experiments none the less… but what better way to have fun with science than connecting it to Marvel superheros, which are his favorite! In less than a month, Marvel’s DOCTOR STRANGE arrives in theaters. While the movie is centered around the subject of magic, if you recall in previous Marvel films (especially in the THOR movies), magic is considered a science!
So obviously I’m not teaching my son magic. Nope, not that talented, and trust me, I don’t have secret Sorcerer Supreme powers. But I do know how to play with science! In the comics, Doctor Strange magic powers often take on the resemblance of a crystal ball, and of course there is the fact that he often relies on the Orb of Agamotto (which to me looks like a crystal ball!). I thought why not we grow our own crystals? This is actually a very safe and easy experiment to conduct. Plus once you grow the crystals, you could ideal place them in a ball, and then have your own crystal ball…
For this experiment we used Epsom salt. Now granted, the salt won’t create large magical rainbow looking crystals. These crystals are on the smaller side and quite delicate. The experiment crows many smaller crystals. How they turn out actually varies. Sometimes the crystals will grow more spiky with a needle-like effect, while other times they grow more rocky. During this particular experiment that I photographed for the post, our crystals grew more rock-like. None the less… my son still had a blast growing them!
Ingredients
Epsom salts
Water
Food coloring
Deep bowl
Directions for DIY Crystals
First take your deep bowl, and pour in 2 cups of Epsom salts.
Then you will want to add in one cup of hot water. You don’t want the water to be boiling, but hot none the less.
Stir the salt with the hot water. The salt does not need to be dissolve. You just want to give it a few good stirs.
Now you’ll want to pour another cup of hot water into a separate container. Add in a few drops of food coloring to this hot water. My son choose blue!
Once that’s done, pour the colored hot water into the deep bowl containing the salt mixture.
Now take your spoon and give the mixture a really good stir. I’d say stir for at least 2 minutes. Once again, no worries if the salt does not dissolve. It is fine if there is salt resting at the bottom of your deep bowl.
Once that is done, stick your bowl in your refrigerator overnight. Try to place it in the coldest part! We placed ours all the way in the back. As the water evaporates, the crystals will start to grow! You may need to pour out the excess water to see the crystals.
You can experiment with different colors, and break up the crystals to use in various other projects. My son just enjoyed playing with the crystals and feeling the texture in his hands.
Be sure to watch the trailer below for the film that inspired this experiment…
Doctor Strange Trailer
Be sure to connect with Marvel’s latest movie on Facebook, Twitter, and Marvel on Instagram.
This film hits theaters on November 4!
DOCTOR STRANGE trailer provided by Walt Disney Publications. All opinions are 100% my own.
This looks like so much fun! My daughter loves science and would love to do this experiment.
And if you use sodium chloride (table salt), you can grow perfect cubes!
What a fun idea. Great for sensory science experiment idea, which is what we always look for.
So cool! I really need to do this with my daughter. I remember making these as a kid and I bet she’d love this experiment.
Oh my goodness! You’re little cutie is having so much fun with this diy science experiment. Heck, I would too! It looks like a lot of fun and he’s learning at the same time. I’m even tempted to make some for myself! :)