Why does glue and borax make slime

Thanks, Everest. Hi there- I want to use your liquid starch slime recipe for my first grade Halloween party—Can you tell me if one recipe is for one kid or for how many—so for a class of do I make 24 recipes? One recipe will make quite a bit of slime. One batch could easily be split ways depending on how much you want each kid to end up having.

I like the condiment size containers that hold about 2oz each! One batch usually fills about 5 of those! Feel free to email me [email protected] if you would like to talk about it more! I know that there were many reports on the news about kids getting burns from the borax in their slime.

Personally I did not get burned but my hands did feel tingly and slightly hot. All in all it does work as an activator but I would advise to choose another activator like detergent or contact lenses solution. Sensitivity is a huge issue. However, my skin did not like laundry detergent at all and I highly advise to stay away from laundry detergent which is why we do not have a recipe for it.

We use less borax than most recipes, and if you do have sensitive skin I would choose saline solution not contact lens solution. Liquid starch is another choice. All the choices contain some form of borons. Plus you can read more science here.

Slime is a neat chemistry activity that covers polymers, cross linking, and general chemistry and you can read more about slime science here. Did you making slime is science too! Neat chemistry to be exact, and you can read more here. Believe it or not, slime is actually an awesome chemistry demonstration, and I have some simple […]. This is because glue is a polymer and the liquid starch is changing the structure of that polymer as the two come together.

Head over to Little Bins for Little Hands to find out more about the science of slime. Our post is great for introducing young kids to the wonderful world of polymers and contains some […]. You can read more about the simple science behind the slime here. You can learn a little bit about molecules and activators and what really happens when you combine all these slime ingredients!

Read all about it here with our basics of homemade slime science. Read more about slime science here! Read more about the science behind the slime here. A chemical change has taken place. The best thing is to get it right from the start, and even then, practice makes perfect. I love the colors especially and that was my inspiration when we decided to make ocean slime for our newest slime science and sensory play activity.

We have quite a collection of neat ocean activities this year with a favorite being crystal seashells and sand slime! Our homemade slime recipe is quite simple to use and makes for wonderful science and sensory play.

If you notice, the mixture also becomes larger than the liquids you started with in the beginning. Read more about slime science here. Slime making is all about chemistry, polymers, reactions, and creating new substance. You can explore more about the science behind the slime here. What do you observe happening within each bag? How are the resultant polymeric materials in each bag different from each other? What physical properties can you describe for each material you've made? Are some materials runny, slimy, sticky, hard, soft, bouncy, etcetera?

Try changing the percentages of glue in Solution 1 or of the borax in Solution 2 to see how that changes your product. Can you optimize the recipe in a new and different way to obtain different types of products? What experiments could you conduct to explore the physical properties of other polymers, such as gelatin? Observations and results Did each bag have some solid product a polymer material take form inside of it after mixing? Did bag C contain the solidest polymeric material, and did bag A contain the most liquidlike one?

Elmer's Glue contains polyvinyl acetate molecules, which are long polymer molecules that are tangled with each other. This is what makes glue viscous, or thick and sticky. When borax sodium tetraborate is added to polyvinyl acetate and cross-links the latter's molecules to each other, the glue solution becomes more viscous.

As borax cross-links more and more of the glue molecules together and they become more viscous, an increasingly larger and solid polymeric material is made from the reaction. The bag with the least amount of glue, bag A, should have been the most liquidlike, whereas the bag with the largest amount of glue, bag C, should have been the solidest.

Store-bought Silly Putty and Slime are not made using polyvinyl acetate, but rather from organosiloxane polymers or polyvinyl alcohol to increase their durability. Cleanup The 50 percent glue solution and the glue and borax mixtures should not be poured down drains as they can form clogs. Dispose of them in plastic bags that you can throw in the garbage. Already a subscriber?

Sign in. Does anyone else thing this slime is getting our kids high? Please note that contact solution contains borax as well as boric acid , it is just prediluted for you. Recipes that contain things like contact solution or liquid starch are not borax free, they are just getting it from another source, often labeled under less recognizable names like sodium borate or sodium tetraborate.

None of these items are particularly dangerous, but they do contain borax, which is what is responsible for the formation of the slime by forming borate ester linkages between the polyvinyl acetate polymers in the glue. Same toxicity as water, baking soda, or salt in excessive amounts eaten can be toxic. Many people mix it with water and use it shampoo or increase the cleaning ability of laundry soap. Over and out. You need to know, borax is not Boric Acid.

If you use it right, it's okay. But I suggest if your child is trying to make Borax Slime, tell her to replace it with contact solution, which is non-toxic, and safe as you don't touch it as you make it. My daughter used borax to make slime at her dad's house and i was so mad her skin was red and turned into hives i mean why when he knows how i feel about borax let her use it!!!

Why do kids think they need to use borax it's just stupid i mean why would you?? I think any type of slime can be fun without it right i don't let my younger brother or younger sister use it or my kids i think the schools should banned it from school, and borax can make your skin itch and other things like that. So listen kids please take this comment and the article to mind thank you!! By Hollee Actman Becker February 28, Save Pin FB More. Credit: Courtesy Dr.

Vanessa Stoloff. Credit: Slime-making supplies, courtesy Dr. Want the latest parenting news? Sign up for our Parents Daily newsletter. By Hollee Actman Becker. Comments 6.