Nothing says Christmas like the red and white stripes of the classic candy cane! We love to take classic Christmas themes and recreate them with slime recipes. Today we have an easy Candy Cane Slime Recipe! We fell in love with slime this year! We have used this homemade slime recipe over and over again, and it has not failed us! This is just one of many holiday slimes we have for you to try. Plus slime is a cool Christmas science activity.

CANDY CANE SLIME RECIPE FOR KIDS

We have made an awesome Christmas Tree Slime and a Snowflake Slime. It is so simple. You will have awesome slime in 5 minutes that you can play with over and over again.

This candy cane slime uses only a few grocery store ingredients. Pick them up on the way home!  All our holiday slimes have been a real hit including our newest gingerbread man slime and Rudolph slime ideas!

 

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE HOMEMADE SLIME RECIPE

What’s the science behind the slime? The borate ions in the starch {or borax powder or boric acid} mixes with the PVA {polyvinyl-acetate} glue and forms this cool stretchy substance. This is called cross linking!

The glue is a polymer and is made up of long, repeating, and identical strands or molecules. These molecules with flow past one another keeping the glue in a liquid state.

The addition of water is important to this process. Think about when you leave a gob of glue out, and you find it hard and rubbery the next day.

When you add the borate ions to the mixture, it starts to connect these long strands together. They begin to tangle and mix until the substance is less like the liquid you started with and is thicker and rubberier like slime!

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THE BASICS OF SLIME SCIENCE FOR KIDS

CANDY CANE SLIME RECIPE SUPPLIES

Elmer’s Clear washable glue 

Elmer’s White Washable Glue

Liquid Starch

Water

Red food coloring {goes with clear glue slime}

Measuring Cups

2 bowls and 2 spoons

SLIME RECIPE: We have several homemade slime recipe to choose from which is great because you can choose which one works best for you based on supplies you have or can get. Here we used our liquid starch slime. Click on the black buttons below to choose your recipe.

You can use white or clear glue for both batches of the candy cane slime recipe with equally wonderful results. Just remember that you will need to add more red food coloring to white glue for a deeper shade of red.

I may have said this about each of our slimes, but I think this is the prettiest one yet. Slime is definitely one of our 12 Favorite Sensory Play Recipes! Slime is an awesome way for kids to explore with their senses, particularly the sense of touch!

This time we actually focused on mixing the two colors together, and it was visually stunning! Plus we got to play with two loads of slime at the same time! That’s a huge amount of slime for one little boy!

CHECK OUT: More awesome candy cane science ideas!

He added all sorts of kitchen tools as you can see from scoops to salad tongs. Another fun in the kitchen type of science and sensory play is called oobleck and we made an awesome candy cane peppermint oobleck to explore Non-newtonian fluids with a holiday theme.

Eventually the colors will mix completely together, and you will have more of a bubble guys colored slime! No matter what color your slime ends up it will still be tons of fun.

Explore more science: Make a crystal candy cane!

This is wonderfully simple sensory play that does not leave the hands messy at all!  It’s a must try this season. Plus, it is truly EASY. I was always hesitant to make slime and now we make our homemade slime all the time!

EASY TO MAKE CANDY CANE SLIME RECIPE FOR CHRISTMAS!

We have tons of great slimes, science and STEM for the Christmas season. Here’s a few to get started. Click on the photos!