Make homemade bouncy balls for fabulous science and sensory play! This DIY bouncy ball recipe hits the nail on the head for a must-try slime making activity. Bouncy balls are a cool variation of our homemade slime, and everyone needs to try making homemade slime at least once.
HOW TO MAKE A BOUNCY BALL
Your homemade bouncy balls use a variation of one of our five essential slime recipes. All our slime recipes are super easy to make for a fun activity anytime! We always make slime, and these have become our favorite slime recipes!
You will use a variation of our Borax Slime recipe to make borax bouncy balls.
Where do I buy borax powder?
We buy our borax powder in the grocery store’s laundry detergent aisle, but it is also available on Amazon, Walmart, and Target.
Did you know that you can grow awesome crystals with a borax mixture as well? Check out our easy How To Grow Crystals.
BOUNCY BALL RECIPE
I always encourage my readers to read through our recommended slime (bouncy ball) supplies list before making these for the first time. Learning how to stock your pantry with the best ingredients is easy!
YOU WILL NEED:
- 3 tbsp Clear Elmer’s School Glue
- 1 tbsp Glitter
- Food coloring (optional)
- 2 tbsp Borax Detergent
- 1 cup Water
- 2 spoons or craft sticks
- Bowl
STEP 1: Combine borax and water. Stir until the Borax has dissolved.
STEP 2: In a separate bowl, combine glitter and glue until the mixture is consistent throughout.
STEP 3: Now you can go ahead and pour 3 globs of the glitter/glue mixture into the water/borax mixture.
STEP 4: Time to dig in with your hands. Begin kneading one of the glue mixture globs, working with one blob at a time.
STEP 5: Knead the material until the glue mixture glob becomes stiff enough to hold its shape.
STEP 6: Roll the slime glob in your palms to form a bouncy ball.
STEP 7: Rinse under cold running water to harden it. Time to play!
💡 Note: These bouncy balls are essentially a super-thick slime, so they will “melt” or “deform” if left sitting on the counter. But you can reform them when you are ready to play again. They will, however, dry out eventually and begin to crumble, but that’s when you know it’s time to make more.
THE SCIENCE OF BORAX BOUNCY BALLS (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 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 made up of long, repeating, and identical strands or molecules. These molecules 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 a clump of spaghetti!
Is slime a liquid or solid?
We call it a non-Newtonian fluid because it’s a bit of both!
Do you know if slime aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)?
It does and you can use slime making to explore states of matter and its interactions. Find out more below…
CHECK OUT MORE FUN IDEAS TO TRY
- Make Your Own Homemade Thinking Putty
- Fluffy Slime Recipe
- Floam Slime
- Crunchy Slime Recipe for Kids
- Best Kinetic Sand Recipe
Try more fun homemade slime recipes right here. Click on the link or on the image below.
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