Extreme Drawing

Christmas science experiments and crafts for kids

Christmas

Snowflakes from salt, frost from the freezer

Three Christmas activities that are real science: a snowflake drawn in glue and salt that sucks up colour along its arms, a winter picture frozen until ice ferns grow in the paint, and a sweet dough baked until its crust turns golden brown.

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  • Ages 4+
  • 30–45 minutes
  • With an adult for the oven
Painted illustration of the painter sprinkling salt on a big blue and purple snowflake painting, beside a frosted snowman drawing, gingerbread stars and hearts and a Christmas tree.
Age
4 to 10
Time
30 min (snowflakes), 1 hour (biscuits)
Mess
Medium: glue, salt, flour
Adult needed
For the oven and the knife
You need
Kitchen cupboard things
On screen / for real
Both

In Extreme Drawing

A salt snowflake. In Craft, pick Glue and draw a snowflake: six lines crossing, with little branches. In the Kitchen, shake Salt from the sieve over it; it sticks to the wet glue as a sparkly white line. Now touch the salt with a loaded watercolour brush, ink drops or food colouring and watch the colour race along the arms.

A frozen winter picture. Paint a snowman or a winter sky with wet watercolour, then tap Put in the freezer on the Time tab. Everything wet freezes, the sheet comes out frosted, and feathery ice ferns grow in the paint and stay after it thaws. Press the hand into the frost to leave a handprint, or shake salt on it and it melts a little pit round each grain.

Something from the oven. There's no ginger in the app's kitchen, but there's flour, butter, honey, icing sugar and cinnamon. Shake a heap of flour, add drops of water and knead it with the hand into dough. Squeeze in some honey or sift on icing sugar, roll it flat with the rolling pin, then tap Bake in the oven: the crust bakes golden brown. Dust it with cinnamon or icing sugar afterwards.

Use the Star and Tree stencils from the drawing kit for decorations. Santa's beard face plant is in the Toy box (in the full toolbox).

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Painted illustration of the painter dripping blue, pink and yellow paint onto a salt-covered glue star and flower on dark card, the colour spreading along the salt.

Do it for real

Salt-painted snowflakes

You need:

  • dark card (blue, purple or black)

  • white PVA glue in a squeeze bottle

  • table salt or fine sea salt

  • watercolour paints or food colouring in a little water

  • a pipette or a soft brush

  • a tray to catch the salt

  1. Draw the snowflake in glue

    Six arms from the middle, then little branches. Thick lines work best.

  2. Pour on the salt

    Cover the glue completely while it's wet. Be generous.

  3. Tip off the extra

    Tilt the card over the tray and tap it gently. The salt stays only on the glue.

  4. Touch on the colour

    Hold a drop of watery colour against a salty line. Don't paint, just touch. The colour runs along the salt by itself.

  5. Try two colours

    Add blue at one end and purple at the other, and see where they meet.

  6. Let it dry flat

    Leave it lying flat overnight. The salt stays crunchy and sparkly.

Do it for real

Spiced Christmas biscuits

You need (about 20 biscuits):

  • 350 g plain flour

  • 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger and 1 of cinnamon

  • 125 g butter

  • 175 g light brown sugar

  • 1 egg

  • 4 tablespoons golden syrup or honey

  • cookie cutters, a rolling pin, baking paper

An adult heats the oven to 180 °C (160 °C fan) and does everything with the oven.

  1. Rub in the butter

    Mix flour, soda and spices, then rub in the butter with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs.

  2. Make a dough

    Stir in the sugar, then the beaten egg and the syrup. Squeeze it together into a ball.

  3. Roll and cut

    Roll it out about half a centimetre thick and cut out stars, trees and people.

  4. Bake (adult)

    12 to 15 minutes, until golden brown. The adult takes the tray out.

  5. Cool, then decorate

    Let them cool on the tray for ten minutes before you touch them.

Hot oven

Only an adult opens the oven and handles the hot tray. Raw dough contains raw egg and flour: don't eat it before it's baked. Check for allergies (egg, wheat, dairy).

Painted illustration of two sheets of paper, one covered in frost ferns from the freezer and one baked golden from the oven, the painter holding an ice cube and an oven glove.

Why it works

For kids: Salt drinks up water, so the colour gets pulled along the salt like a straw. Heat turns the outside of dough brown and crunchy, and that can't be undone.

For grown-ups: Salt is hygroscopic and the grains form a porous path, so capillary action wicks the coloured water along the glue line. Freezing is a reversible change: the ice melts back to water, though the crystals that grew in wet watercolour push pigment aside and leave their pattern behind. Baking is irreversible: sugars caramelise and the Maillard reaction browns the crust, while bicarbonate of soda gives off carbon dioxide in the heat and puffs the biscuits up a little. Salt on ice lowers the freezing point, which is why it melts pits in frost.

Try next

Coarse or fine?

Does the colour travel further along coarse salt or fine salt?

Freeze it twice

In the app, paint over a frozen-and-thawed picture and freeze it again. Do new ferns grow?

Can you un-bake it?

Freeze a baked biscuit. Does it go back to dough? Why not?

For teachers

Freezing versus baking fits reversible and irreversible changes (NGSS 2-PS1-4; KS2 Year 5 "properties and changes of materials"). Show both on the whiteboard, ask the class to predict, then do the salt snowflakes at the tables.

Reversible changes lesson

Why does my salt painting not soak up the colour?

The salt layer is too thin, or the colour is too thick. Use plenty of salt and very watery paint, and just touch the drop to the salt.

Can I do salt painting without glue?

Yes: sprinkle salt onto a wet watercolour painting. Each grain draws in water and leaves a pale starburst, like snow.

What's an easy Christmas science experiment for preschoolers?

Freezing: put a few toys in a tub of water overnight, then melt them out with warm water and salt. Or salt painting a snowflake.

Is there gingerbread in the app?

No ginger, but you can make a sweet dough with flour, water, honey or icing sugar and bake it golden in the app's oven.

More to try

Painted illustration of a pumpkin with star-shaped holes and mould spots, a bottle foaming over in orange and purple and a pipe-cleaner spider, the painter holding a witch's hat.

Halloween

Friendly spooky science for October.

Make a snowflake on the screen

Play in your browserAll seasons