Are your children obsessed with slime? I know that mine are! So this school holidays, we decided to make our own glitter unicorn galaxy slime, or as my eldest daughter so eloquently called it; ‘unicorn poo’! She is such a delightful child…
Slime is great for exploratory sensory play or as a scientific chemistry experiment if your children are older. This recipe is supposedly safe and non-toxic, though contact lens solution doesn’t seem too safe to me. It’s probably not a good idea for children under 3 years old and I recommend adult supervision.
Ingredients
- 6 oz non-toxic washable glitter glue (I used Elmer’s)
- 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 1/2 tablespoon contact lens solution (it must contain boric acid otherwise it won’t work)
- Extra glitter; cause we all need more glitter in our lives (though it’s not essential)
I made three batches of different coloured slime, so I repeated the following steps three times. If you can’t find glitter glue, you can also use normal white glue, just add some food colouring to make it colourful.
Step 1: Empty all of the 6 oz glue into a bowl
Step 2: Add 1/2 tablespoon of baking powder and stir through with a metal spoon. This will make the glue pale and fluffy.
Step 3: Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of contact solution and stir through. Add the extra glitter now.
Step 4: Mix well in the bowl until the slime starts to come away from the side of the bowl. Turn it out on to a countertop and knead with your hands until the slime isn’t too sticky. For an easy clean up I also used the slime to capture any leftovers in the bowl and on the spoon.
Are you ready to play?
Please note: if you mix the colours together you are obviously going to end up with one colour.
I stored them in airtight containers in the fridge so that they will last for a couple of weeks (conveniently when they’re ready to go back to school). It would also be nice to add a couple of drops of essential oil to make them smell nice. I’ll do that next time.
And in case you’re interested in the science behind how slime works…glue has long flexible molecules in it called polymers and these polymer molecules slide past each other as a liquid.
Borax in water forms an ion called the borate ion. When the borax solution is added to the glue solution, the borate ions help link the long polymer molecules to each other so they cannot move and flow as easily.
When enough polymer molecules get hooked together in the right way, the glue solution changes from being very liquidy to a rubbery kind of stuff that we call slime! Ta Daa
(sciencey words from the American Chemical Society)
Enjoy!
The Mummy Track 