Making salt crystal snowflakes is fast, easy, and a perfect winter DIY craft for adults with special needs who need to build their fine motor skills. 

This experiment uses a supersaturated saline solution in which the heated water holds more salt than the cooled water can. When the heated water cools, it makes the solution still safe to touch but unstable. This instability means that the water will give back salt to any absorbent material that is suspended in it for a few days. In this case, the dissolved salt leaves the water and clings onto the pipe cleaners. As you dry your salt-water-covered pipe cleaners, the salt remains behind, making it even more unstable and stimulating crystals to grow.

To Make Salt Crystal Snowflakes, You will need:

• Salt
• Mason Jars or Larger Jars (they need to be straight on the sides as opposed to tapered)
• Blue and White Pipe Cleaners
• Clothing Pegs
• Magnifying Glass (Optional)

Prep Instructions

1. To make this science experiment easier, prep your saltwater in advance by filling up your jar(s) with water and pouring them into a cooking pot. 
2. As the water begins to boil, start to add your salt. Keep adding salt until you can see crystals forming on the surface of the water. (This is going to be a lot of salt–at least a third of one of those regular size Morton cardboard salt containers)
3. After the water is cooled, pour it into your jar(s).

Snowflake Science Experiment Instructions

1. Time to start designing the snowflakes for the experiment!
2. Pick 3-4 pipe cleaners. 
3. Make sure that your pipe cleaners can easily fit through the mouth of the jar if you were to try to lower them into the jar horizontally. Bear in mind that they will be a smidge smaller once they’re twisted together, so that gives you some wiggle room.
4. Lay one pipe cleaner down on a surface and another across it to make an ‘X’. 
5. Twist the middle of the two pipe cleaners together. One twist will do, but a couple won’t hurt.
6. Lay the connected pipe cleaners back down on your surface and lay one more pipe cleaner over them. Twist the newest pipe cleaner in the middle to wrap it around the middle of the first two. 
7. Repeat step 5 once more if you’d like to create a more detailed snowflake. If not, three connected pipe cleaners will do nicely.
8. Fan out your connected pipe cleaners to make a basic star shape (see above).
9. Add one last pipe cleaner to the middle of the others. This time just attaching the end of the new pipe cleaner to the middle of the others to form one longer arm.
10. Once that’s secured, have your clothes pin at the ready. 
11. Suspend your pipe cleaner star into the salt water jar with the longest star limb facing upwards and poking out of the top of the jar.
12. Clip your clothing pin to the top of the star’s longest limb.
13. Let the snowflake jars sit in a sunny window for 3 days.
14. After 3 days, take the pipe cleaner stars out and let them dry on a paper towel.
15. Salt crystals will have formed on them to make snowflakes!
16. Inspect them with or without a magnifying glass.
17. You can also hang them on your tree.

About Stephen’s Place

Stephen’s Place is an independent apartment community for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, located in Vancouver, WA (7 minutes from Portland, OR).

If you have a loved one with developmental or intellectual disabilities who is looking for a community to live in, please contact us for more information. 

Stephen’s Place is a private-pay apartment community due to our state-of-the-art amenities and programs. We are a nonprofit and do not profit from our community. We are private pay because we spend more than some housing communities to ensure that our residents are comfortable and can safely live their lives with independence and dignity.