Next, we stirred the mixture until all the baking soda dissolved and stopped

fizzing.  “Now, how are we going to make hot ice from this?” I asked

“Freeze it,” my 5 year old replied.  Actually, we needed to boil it.  The sodium
acetate solution as it was had too much water so we headed to the kitchen
and I boiled the solution over medium low heat for a little over an hour.
You’ll want to reduce the solution by about 75% or until you have about 3/4-
1 cup.  I could see white powdery crystals forming on the sides of the pot
near the top of the solution.  If you boil your solution at a higher temperature
it may turn yellow-brownish but don’t worry, the experiment will still work!

Next, I poured the concentrated sodium acetate into a glass pyrex measuring
cup and placed it in the fridge to cool.  I then scraped a little of the dried
sodium acetate powder off the inside of the pot to use later.  After about 30-
45 minutes, the solution was cool enough to turn into ice.  I grabbed my
glass dish and placed a small pile of the sodium acetate powder from the pot
in the center.  This would act as a seed for the crystals to start forming on.

I gathered the kids and asked them what they thought happened to the
solution the fridge.  “It made ice,” said my 3 year old to which my 5 year old
replied, “No it’s not cold enough.”  I carefully took the cool solution out of the
fridge and they saw it was still liquid.  Any bump could start the crystallizing
process in the solution so be very careful not to jar the solution .