Pretty Science - Solids and Liquids

I was reading through one of my favourite blogs, Almost Unschoolers for some inspiration and came across many fun and interesting activities.  We tried one out yesterday, 'Dripping Crayon Craft'.   R (5) is fascinated with fire at the moment, so I thought he'd enjoy this one!

Before we started we also talked a little about fire safety and introduced 'Stop, Drop and Roll,'  I thought this was an excellent idea.  

The activity started off similar to that posted on Almost Unschoolers.  We started melting some crayons over the candle flame.

We both noted how beautiful the candle looked as the crayon wax dripped down it.  R happily dripped the the melted wax on the paper.

We soon discovered not all our wax crayons were wax, when some of them caught fire, melted into something sticky and released a toxic smelling odour!

R also discovered a rather novel way of keeping the crayons he had already used :)  

At this point our craft lesson took a turn and became a spontaneous science activity!  

We brought in bowl of cool water and I asked R what he thought would happen when the hot wax dripped into the water.  I asked him a few times, he answered with an "I don't know." So I narrowed it down for him. Would the wax remain liquid or become solid?  He said liquid because the water is liquid.

To his surprise it became solid!  To my surprise they looked magical, like little snow flakes, immediately solidfying as the drops hit the water (I plan to repeat this activity during the boat festival,  it's a really pretty way to decorate the water).

We talked about what it was that made the wax solid or liquid. R soon discovered it was the temperature.

We then started dripping the candle wax into the bowl. The wax from the candle was less fragile, and held all the crayon wax drops together.  When we were finished we lifted our wax creation up from the water. The top was smooth...

the underneath was not!  

Papa mentioned how the formations looked a bit like the stalactites found in caves, an idea for future research and activities perhaps? Hmmmm...  

The candle looked great!

To finish, we experimented with some stamps,

and water colour paint wash over the top of our wax crayon drops.

Finally, some cleaning up...