Make a Christmas tree out of slime for Christmas science with our easy Christmas slime recipe! Slime is a pretty fun activity for kids and it’s so easy to make. Try this fun Christmas tree slime for the holidays and learn how to make homemade slime year round!
MAKE CHRISTMAS SLIME FOR KIDS
HOMEMADE SLIME FOR CHRISTMAS
Christmas slime is an easy holiday slime for the kids to try out this season. Plus it’s fun to whip up together with really simple ingredients that you can pick up at the grocery store too. You can have fun turning this Christmas tree slime into a tree shape with the help of a special prop!
Slime making is a serious matter with kids, and I know everyone is looking for the best slime recipes around. Our Christmas Tree Slime is yet another AMAZING slime recipe we can show you how to make.
Oh and slime is science too, so don’t miss the great information on the science behind this easy slime below. Watch our awesome slime videos and see how easy it is to make the best Christmas slime!
DECORATE A SLIME CHRISTMAS TREE
Decorate a slime tree with this fun Christmas slime! Confetti, glitter, pompoms, tiny plastic ornaments, and beads make perfect decorations to add to your slime making activity this holiday! Can you guess the fun addition to make the Christmas tree slime look like a Christmas tree?
This holiday slime activity was updated to add a foam cone that the slime can ooze down. The first time we made this Christmas tree homemade slime, we just enjoyed decorating as is! My little one couldn’t believe that this was actually a science experiment for kids because it was so neat and cool!
ALSO CHECK OUT: CHRISTMAS SLIME RECIPES
HOW DO YOU MAKE SLIME?
We always like to include a bit of homemade slime science around here, and that’s perfect for exploring Chemistry with a fun holiday theme. 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 the science behind the slime? The borate ions in the slime activators (sodium borate, borax powder, or boric acid) mix 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. Until…
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 thicker and rubberier 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 the clump of spaghetti!
SLIME FOR NGSS: Did you know that slime aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards? It does and you can use slime making to explore states of matter and its interactions. Check out NGSS 2-PS1-1 for more information!
Is slime a liquid or solid? We call it a Non-newtonian fluid because it’s a little bit of both!
Read more about slime science here!
CHRISTMAS SLIME RECIPE
The base for this holiday theme slime uses one of our most basic slime recipes (liquid starch slime) which is clear glue, water, and liquid laundry starch.
Now if you don’t want to use saline solution, you can absolutely test out one of our other basic recipes using saline solution or borax powder.
SLIME INGREDIENTS:
- 1/2 cup of Elmer’s Clear Glue
- 1/2 cup of water
- Food Coloring and Glitter
- 1/4-1/2 Cup of Liquid Starch
HOW TO MAKE CHRISTMAS SLIME
STEP 1: In a bowl add 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup of glue, and mix well to combine completely.
STEP 2: Now’s the time to add green color!
Mix the food coloring 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: Now time to start kneading your slime! It will appear stringy at first but just 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!
SLIME MAKING TIP: We always recommend kneading your slime well after mixing. Kneading the slime really helps to improve it’s consistency. The trick with liquid starch slime is to put a few drops of the liquid starch onto your hands before picking up the slime.
You can knead the slime in the bowl before you pick it up as well. This slime is stretchy but can be stickier. However, keep in mind that although adding more liquid starch reduces the stickiness, and it will eventually create a stiffer slime.
Use our “How To Fix Your Slime” guide if you are having trouble and make sure to watch my live start to finish slime video here
DECORATE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE SLIME
Get ready for the best part, decorating your Christmas tree homemade slime! Gather your supplies and get started…
We had so much fun decorating our homemade Christmas tree slime and those little hands worked hard pushing the ornaments into the slime and even picking them up. (Sneaky fine motor skills too!)
Add a cookie cutter too. You can cut out a tree shape and watch it ooze back out to a blob. That’s great slime science!
NEW! Add a styrofoam cone shape to your play as we did in our videos! It makes the tree decorating even more fun as your slime oozes over the cone in a tree shape.
STORING YOUR SLIME
Slime lasts quite a while! I get a lot of questions regarding how I store my slime. We use reusable containers in either plastic or glass. Make sure to keep your slime clean and it will last for several weeks. I love the deli-style containers in my recommended slime supplies list here.
MORE FUN SLIME RECIPES TO TRY
- Fluffy Slime
- Borax Slime
- Edible Slime Recipes
- Saline Solution Slime
- Snow Slime Recipes
- Cloud Slime
- Frozen Slime
MAKE CHRISTMAS SLIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Click on the photos below for more awesome Christmas STEM activities.
No more having to print out a WHOLE blog post for just one recipe!
Get our basic slime recipes in an easy to print format so you can knock out the activities!
—>>> FREE SLIME RECIPE CARDS
Just gorgeous. Have scheduled to share on my Facebook page.
Thank you!
I could see my munchkins “decorating” this tree for a good long While! Great idea!
Looks so slimy but I think it is so cool and also it is unique, so creative. Ill try to make one of this in this coming christmas. Try to check this alternative christmas trees here guys http://www.exploretalent.com/articles/extremely-cool-alternative-christmas-tree-ideas/ . What do you think about it?
Hi! Thanks for all these great sensory ideas!! How long does the slime keep? I want to make it for my class a couple of days ahead of time-will it keep? Thanks.
Slime keeps nicely for about a week in my opinion. Loosely covered. Flip it around every now and then and you should be fine.
Thank you!
Wondering if I do this as a class project, would we make one recipe per student, or is one batch enough for several students? Thanks.
You can use one batch for 3-4 kids. The best thing is to grab some of those condiment cups from the dollar store. Makes just enough slime per person to still be fun!