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Classic Slime!
Parents: Read it through before performing this experiment!

Purpose: To create a fun-to-play with polymer

Materials:

Bowl
2 400ml Beakers (or 2 glasses/cups/empty jars of equal size)
Spoon
White Glue
Borax
Water
Food Coloring
Zip-lock style plastic bag
Funnel (optional)

Procedure:

1) Fill one beaker about halfway with glue. Add water until the beaker is nearly full, and gently stir until the water and glue are thoroughly mixed.
2) Add 4 or 5 drops of food coloring to the glue/water mixture and stir until the color is evenly distributed.
3) Pour your colored glue mixture into the bowl.
3) Fill the other beaker halfway with water. Add 4 heaping spoonfuls of Borax and stir gently until the water looks gray. Some Borax will settle onto the bottom of the beaker. That’s fine. Pour the gray water into the colored glue, being careful not to let the Borax that is still powdered plop in. Stir the contents of the bowl and watch what happens!
4) After gently but thoroughly stirring the glue/borax mixture, pick up the bowl and using your fingers as a strainer, pour the liquid portion back into one of the beakers while leaving just the gooey blob in the bowl.
5) Pick up the gooey blob and squeeze & squish it (use the same motion as if you were making a snowball). In a few moments, the wetness will disappear, leaving you with a cool ball of colored slime! Stretch it! Roll it! Bounce it! It's awesome!
6) Store your slime in the plastic bag when not in use.

Try This!
Put a funnel into one of the beakers (or an empty jar, if you don’t have a beaker). Roll the slime into a nice, round ball and plop the ball into the funnel. Observe the funnel/slime setup every ten minutes or so. Does anything change?

What’s Going On?
Mixing with Borax causes the glue to polymerize, or convert into an amorphous (“shape changing") solid. Since this is a chemical change, the slime cannot be converted back into glue.

Caution: Do not leave slime on carpets, furniture or anything made of cloth, as it may stain such items. Only play with it on hard, smooth surfaces! Hot water will dissolve hardened slime.

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