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I used to enjoy growing crystals when I was a kid. It's a good indoor activity for the winter. Plain white sugar is also interesting. Alum (used to make pickle

I used to enjoy growing crystals when I was a kid. It's a good indoor activity for the winter. Plain white sugar is also interesting. Alum (used to make pickles, can often be found in the herb and spice aisle at the store) makes neat crystals. If your kids are old enough to be trusted not to eat the experiments, copper sulfate (used to kill roots that are growing into sewer lines) makes beautiful crystals. It can be found at Home Depot-type stores. Edit: I see this author has a link to another article on growing copper sulfate crystals down at the bottom of this article. Recommended!

jrumbut 5y ago
I was trying very hard to remember what the other two "classic fun-for-kids crystal growing" chemicals were and it was eating me alive. Thank you for the answer, I still remember my alum crystals for the grade school science fair.
- Jiro 5y ago
  I tried Epsom salts as a kid, since there was some around the house. They were a lot easier to grow than table salt.
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    Epsom salts! Yes! Another good one.
- mountain_peak 5y ago
  Alum crystals in a disposable pie pan on a hot water radiator turned out brilliantly in my youth. Fast-forward many years, and my daughter wasn't having much luck with salt, sugar, or even copper sulfate (that one looked like a melted smurf). I remembered my alum crystals, which she tried, and lo and behold...nothing! Desperate (on the night before the assignment was due), I remembered someone mentioning that you can make crystals with mothball flakes. We picked a bag of flakes up and heated them up in a dish, and were able to make long, beautiful crystals on the bottom of a cold glass over the heated solution. The only problem was that as soon as we moved the glass away from the solution, the crystals evaporated, so she took a picture of the crystals as they were forming and received full marks. A happy ending, but the house smelled of mothballs for a few days!
outworlder 5y ago
> If your kids are old enough to be trusted not to eat the experiments, copper sulfate (used to kill roots that are growing into sewer lines) makes beautiful crystals. It can be found at Home Depot-type stores. I had a chemistry set as a kid, it had copper sulfate. The only crystals I've managed to grow :)

jrumbut 5y ago

I was trying very hard to remember what the other two "classic fun-for-kids crystal growing" chemicals were and it was eating me alive. Thank you for the answer, I still remember my alum crystals for the grade school science fair.

Jiro 5y ago
I tried Epsom salts as a kid, since there was some around the house. They were a lot easier to grow than table salt.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  Epsom salts! Yes! Another good one.
mountain_peak 5y ago
Alum crystals in a disposable pie pan on a hot water radiator turned out brilliantly in my youth. Fast-forward many years, and my daughter wasn't having much luck with salt, sugar, or even copper sulfate (that one looked like a melted smurf). I remembered my alum crystals, which she tried, and lo and behold...nothing! Desperate (on the night before the assignment was due), I remembered someone mentioning that you can make crystals with mothball flakes. We picked a bag of flakes up and heated them up in a dish, and were able to make long, beautiful crystals on the bottom of a cold glass over the heated solution. The only problem was that as soon as we moved the glass away from the solution, the crystals evaporated, so she took a picture of the crystals as they were forming and received full marks. A happy ending, but the house smelled of mothballs for a few days!

outworlder 5y ago

> If your kids are old enough to be trusted not to eat the experiments, copper sulfate (used to kill roots that are growing into sewer lines) makes beautiful crystals. It can be found at Home Depot-type stores. I had a chemistry set as a kid, it had copper sulfate. The only crystals I've managed to grow :)