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    • How To Make Slime

    How to Make Slime

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    Whether you call it slime, flubber, oobleck, goo, goop, gak, gunk, ooze, putty, or play dough, we are talking about gooey, homemade polymers that can provide both hours of fun and an introduction to chemistry.

    		How to Make Slime Resource Handout for Classroom or Homeschool: Just $2.00

    About Chemistry: Slime Recipes5 stars

    Anne Marie Helmenstine, PhD is About.com's chemistry guide, but you don't need a PhD to follow her recipes for a bouncing polymer ball, electroactive slime, fake snot (eww!), Metamucil flubber, or glow-in-the-dark slime. I was fascinated by her illustrated Floam recipe. "Floam is like slime with polystyrene beads in it, that kids can mold into shapes. You can sculpt with it or use it to coat other objects. You can store it to reuse it or allow it to dry, if you want permanent creations."



    Bizarre Labs: The Page that Dripped Slime5 stars

    Non-Newtonian fluids sometimes behave like liquids and sometimes like solids, thereby defying easy categorization. Quicksand, gelatin, and ketchup are a few examples of non-Newtonian fluids. So is the slime recipe presented here, along with explanations of some of the science principles at work. "The thing that makes this particular slime work is the bonding of polyvinylacetate (PVAC) molecules by the Borax (sodium tetraborate). The molecules (polymers) are long to begin with, and they are tangled, which is why the glue is so viscous."

    Cooks.com: Recipes: Slime5 stars

    Normally I visit Cooks.com for dinner recipes, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that they also house dozens of recipes for slime, silly putty, goop, and play dough. Simply use the search box to find them. Most of these slime and putty recipes are just for play, but you will find edible treats (such as Green Slime made with lime Jello, lemon pudding, evaporated milk and soda crackers) hiding among the craft recipes.

    Kid Activies: Goop, Gak, Slime & Fun Recipes5 stars

    Although most of these recipes lack photos, there are more than fifty varieties of goo, gak, slime, and play dough here. Additionally, at the bottom of the page, you'll find tips for adding variety to your goo. "For color you can add food coloring, Kool-Aid or fruit-flavored gelatin. For scent, you can add lemon oil, peppermint oil, or vanilla extract."

    Kid Science: Slime & Polymers5 stars

    "The Slime we made is just a demonstration of how certain polymers are effected by other chemicals, such as 'cross-linkers.' Polymers are used in nearly everything these days, such as most kinds of plastics, nylon, and clothes. You can sometimes spot a polymer by it's name: if it ends in -on, like nylon or rayon, it can be a polymer." This page from Household Science for Kids has one slime recipe and a good explanation of the science behind it. You'll find another recipe on their Iso/Thixotropy page, which you'll find on the main horizontal menu.

    		How to Make Slime Resource Handout for Classroom or Homeschool: Just $2.00



    Honorable Mentions

    The following links are either new discoveries or sites that didn't make it into my newspaper column because of space constraints. Enjoy!

    How to Make Slime

    How to Make Slime

    Kids in the Kitchen: Homemade Slime!

    Gak, Flubber, Silly Putty, & Oobleck Recipes


    Cite This Page

    Feldman, Barbara. "How to Make Slime." Surfnetkids. Feldman Publishing. 30 Aug. 2016. Web. 8 Dec. 2025. <https://www.surfnetkids.com/resources/how-to-make-slime/ >.


    About This Page

    By . Originally published August 30, 2016. Last modified October 11, 2022.

    Filed Under: Arts, Crafts, Music, Experiments, Recipes, Science

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