Make The Lorax theme slime for Earth Day, Dr. Seuss Day, or any day! Both Read Across America and Earth Day are perfect for our planet Earth slime activity! Learn how to make slime with kids with our proven slime recipes that won’t fail. We can show you slime-making ideas you will love!
“The Lorax” by Dr Seuss is one of our go-to books for Earth Day. It has a powerful message about the importance of conservation and the consequences of environmental destruction. Through the story of the Once-ler and the Truffula trees, Dr. Seuss highlights the impact of human activities on the environment and the need to protect natural resources.
Read the book, discuss the story and then pair it with this fun The Lorax theme slime below. Make two batches of green and blue slime with liquid starch and glue. Alternatively, you can make our glittery planet slime.
We have many great Dr. Seuss activities with themes from our favorite books! Make sure to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday with a bit of science, too!
How To Make Slime With Liquid Starch
I always encourage my readers to read the recommended slime supplies list and troubleshooting guide before making slime. Then, they can learn how to stock their pantry with the best slime ingredients.
Where Do I buy Liquid Starch?
We pick up our liquid starch in the grocery store! Check the laundry detergent aisle and look for the bottles marked starch. Ours is Linit Starch (brand). You might also see Sta-Flo as a popular option. You can also find it on Amazon, Walmart, Target, and even craft stores.
“But what if I don’t have liquid starch available to me?”
This is a pretty common question from those who live out of the United States, and we do have some alternatives to share with you. Click on the link below to see if any of these will work! Our saline solution slime recipe also works well for Canadian and UK readers.
The Lorax Slime Recipe
We also have a Glitter Earth Day 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!
Supplies:
- 1/2 Cup of Washable PVA Clear Glue or White Glue
- 1/4 Cup of Liquid Starch
- 1/2 Cup of Water
- Food coloring
- Copy of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax!
Instructions:
STEP 1: In a bowl, mix 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup of glue. Mix well to combine thoroughly.
STEP 2: Now’s the time to add your color. We made a batch with green food coloring and another with blue food coloring for our Earth Day theme. Mix the color into the glue and water mixture.
STEP 3: Pour in 1/4 cup of liquid starch. You will see the slime immediately start to form. 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 changes. You can also put it in a clean container and set it aside for 3 minutes, and you will also notice the change in consistency!
STEP 5: Have fun!
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 Awesome Dr Seuss Activities
- DR. SEUSS HAT
- DR SEUSS MATH ACTIVITY: PATTERNING IN MATH
- HOW TO MAKE BUTTER IN A JAR
- THE LORAX COFFEE FILTER CRAFT
- GRINCH SLIME
- BARTHOLOMEW AND THE OOBLECK ACTIVITY
- TEN APPLES ON TOP ACTIVITIES
More Fun Ways To Celebrate Earth Day
- Earth Day Lava Lamp
- Recycled Newspaper Craft
- Earth Day Sensory Bottles
- Planet Earth Slime
- Earth Day Water Absorption Experiment
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.
Perfect activity for kids in a Science class. I’m sure my students will enjoy this.