I know Earth Day is supposed to be about planting trees, cleaning up our communities, and caring for the environment and it is! But it is also fun to make an Earth Day slime too! Why not learn how to make the Earth with slime too! Slime that looks like an earth is sure to be loads of fun for the kids. Check out all our Earth Day activities for kids.
Let’s Make Slime For Earth Day
Ah yes, we love to make slime, and there are so many different ways to make slime that are quick and easy. We just finished collecting our favorite ideas into one easy to use slime recipes list that also adds a bit about the slime science and slime safety tips.
This gorgeous sparkling Earth Day themed slime recipe is a terrific way to explore a cool chemistry experiment. We made two batches of green and blue glitter slime with our slime activator, liquid starch and clear glue. Then, they combined them in a plastic globe ornaments to make our planet slime. Read on for the full recipe!
Our Earth should be a shiny special place just like our homemade slime. This is a fun way to engage kids in a great discussion using science and sensory play all at once!
We also have a Lorax Planet Earth slime to check out, and if you ever want to learn how to make goop, we have an Earth Day goop or oobleck recipe that is pretty cool, too!
TIP: You can even spend time with your kids playing with homemade slime and talking about caring for our planet! It’s a great way to start a discussion about our planet, talk about community clean-up plans, or learn how we can help protect the environment every day.
Earth Day Slime Recipe
You can also make a half batch of this glitter glue recipe and use only a 1/4 cup for the recipe if you don’t want to have to use two bottles of glue. We did use the whole vial of glitter {but it was a small one}. We love glitter!
Supplies:
- 1/2 Cup of Washable PVA Clear Glue
- 1/4-1/2 Cup of Liquid Starch
- 1/2 Cup of Water
- Blue and Green Glitter
- Container, Measuring Cup, and Spoon
- Reusable Plastic Ornament
Instructions:
STEP 1: In a bowl, add 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup glue and mix well to combine completely.
STEP 2: Now’s the time to add color, glitter, or confetti!
STEP 3: Pour in 1/4 cup of liquid starch and stir well.
You will see the slime immediately start to form and pull away from the sides of the bowl. Keep stirring until you have a gooey blob of slime. The liquid should be gone!
STEP 4: Start kneading your slime! It will appear stringy at first but work it around with your hands and you will notice the consistency change.
SLIME MAKING TIP: The trick with liquid starch slime is to put a few drops of the liquid starch onto your hands before picking up the slime. However, keep in mind that although adding more liquid starch reduces the stickiness, and it will eventually create a stiffer slime.
If you like our ornament idea for creating your perfect Earth Day slime, you won’t need a full portion of slime for each color. It was certainly fun to swirl the slime colors together and create our own version of the Earth. You could also make Earth Day playdough!
The Science of Slime
We always like to include a bit of homemade slime science around here! Slime is an excellent chemistry demonstration and kids love it too! Mixtures, substances, polymers, cross-linking, states of matter, elasticity, and viscosity are just a few of the science concepts that can be explored with homemade slime!
What’s slime science all about? The borate ions in the slime activators (sodium borate, borax powder, or boric acid) mix with the PVA (polyvinyl acetate) glue and form this cool stretchy substance. This is called cross-linking!
The glue is a polymer of long, repeating, and identical strands or molecules. These molecules flow past one another, keeping the glue liquid. Until…
When you add the borate ions to the mixture, it starts to connect the long strands together. They begin to tangle and mix until the substance is less like the liquid you started with and thicker and rubbery like slime! Slime is a polymer.
Picture the difference between wet spaghetti and leftover spaghetti the next day. As the slime forms, the tangled molecule strands are much like a clump of spaghetti!
Is slime a liquid or solid?
We call it a non-Newtonian fluid because it’s a little bit of both! Experiment with making the slime more or less viscous with varying amounts of foam beads. Can you change the density?
Helpful Slime Making Resources To Get You Started
These are the best resources to look through before, during, and after making your awesome fruit scented slime! We talk more about slime science below too.
More Favorite Slime Ideas To Try
Slime making is even more fun when you add in glitter, foam beads, shaving cream, or soft clay. Check out some of our favorite slime recipes…
More Fun Ways To Celebrate Earth Day
Printable Earth Day STEM Activities Pack
Celebrate Earth Day with STEM! 220+ Pages of Earth Day science activities and STEM projects for kids that are easy to set up and fit into your available time, even if it’s limited!
STEAM Mini Pack added three hands-on activities for acid rain, stormwater runoff, and carbon footprints!
- Printable Earth Day theme STEM activities that are simple but engaging for home or classroom. Perfect for K-3/4 and beyond but easily adaptable to many skill levels.
- Dive into simple background science explanations to share with kids while they explore hands-on and playful experiments, projects, and activities such as cleaning up oil spills, exploring water filters, and more!
- Engaging Earth Day Engineers pack with theme activities, journal pages, and design process steps! Learn about the design process and think like an engineer while you design and build a better recycling can and more!
- Easy to gather supplies makes these STEM activities ideal when you have limited resources available. Specialty activities include growing a grass head, making an insect hotel, DIY birdseed ornaments, and more!
- Additional STEM activities also Include a recycle sort, brick building ideas, puzzles, and screen-free coding activities.
- Earth Day Bingo Activity Pack is included as well.
You have the most amazing slime ideas and recipes