My kids love cool (/ gross!) sensory activities, and so I’m always on the lookout for fun things to explore together. We’ve explored oobleck before, and when I saw this project for homemade slime on this awesome site, I knew we had to check it out during the Halloween season.
DIY Slime Ingredients
- Elmer’s glue
- 2 disposable cups
- Food coloring (any color) – note: this works just fine without food coloring – you just get white slime – and you don’t have to worry about staining clothes or fingers
- Water
- Borax Powder (available at most large grocery stores near the laundry detergent)
- A tablespoon (for measuring)
Getting Started
Start by filling one of your cups up with water, and stir one spoonful of Borax into the water.
Then, put about an inch of glue into the other cup.
Add three tablespoons of water to the glue and stir.
If you would like colored slime, add a few drops of food coloring to the glue mixture. We added 8-10 drops to get a deep green. BUT, if you would like to be able to play with the slime without the worry of food coloring stains, you can just skip the food coloring and stick to WHITE, GHOSTLY SLIME.
Combining the Mixtures
Then, add one tablespoon of the Borax mixture into the glue mixture. Stir well and observe how the watery glue begins to solidify just a little and turn into slime. Depending on how much glue you put into your cup, you may need to add a bit more Borax solution. Go slowly on adding the Borax stuff — your glue mixture will go from slime to solid pretty quickly (as ours began to.)
Whoa – so cool!!
Enjoy Your DIY Slime
Let your slime sit for a minute or so, then you can pull it out and play with it! Our fingers did get a little stained from the food coloring, so I would probably skip the food coloring next time. Also, you can put the slime in a ziplock bag for storage — or as a mess-free way to play.
How DIY Slime Works
Want to understand/explain what’s going on? From Science Bob: “Now for the SCIENCE part…. This POLYMER is unique because it has qualities of both a solid and a liquid. It can take the shape of its containers as a liquid does, yet you can hold it in your hand and pick it up like a solid. As you might know, solid molecules are tight together, liquid molecules spread out and break apart (drops) POLYMER molecules CHAIN themselves together (they can stretch and bend like chains) and that makes them special. Jell-O, rubber bands, plastic soda bottles, sneaker soles, even gum are all forms of polymers. The polymer you made should be kept in a sealed plastic bag when you aren’t playing with it. Also, be sure to keep it away from young kids or pets who might think it’s food.”
Enjoy!
