Make Monster Slime for Halloween

I am so excited for Halloween. I didn’t always love the holiday. I really hate scary movies (after all, even the trailers have been known to give me nightmares) and I don’t like gory decorations. But, now that I have kids, I’ve learned to love the fun side of halloween. We spend a fair amount of time each halloween decorating the house with ghoulies and ghoasties, and creating fun themed activities.

This week, the kids and I jumped aboard the slime train, and made some monster slime to play with. Slime is supposed to be super simple to make (more on why I disagree here in a second) so I thought it would be a fun break for our homeschool day.

This recipe is really basic. All you need is glue, borax powder, water, and then food coloring and any other add-ins you may want to include. If you don’t want to use borax, stop by my friend’s blog over at Little Bins for Little Hands – she has a ton of recipes for different slimes and sensory doughs.

I wasted way too much glue trying to get this recipe right, so if you are going to make slime, make sure you pay attention to the recipe. As my friend pointed out to me, this is chemistry after all, and instructions are important.

Start by pouring 1/2 a cup of Elmer’s glue into a bowl. Add in 3/4 cup of warm water, and stir until well mixed. Thinning the glue is super important, so take your time mixing until it’s nice and thin.

Then, combine 1/2 cup hot water and 1 teaspoon borax powder in a measuring cup. Stir well until all the borax is dissolved. You don’t want any grains left behind, or it will make your slime clumpy and grainy.

At this point, you can add the food coloring to the glue mixture, and then slowly stir in the borax mixture. As you mix, the glue will begin to clump together and turn into slime. You may need to knead it with your hands to get the correct consistency.

Once it has reached this point, mix in the glitter and google eyes. You want to be careful to not add too many, or your slime will not hold and will begin to clump and fall apart. Add it slowly, a little at a time and knead it in for the best results.

Now you are ready to play with your slime! The kids will spend an hour just sitting and squishing and stretching this stuff! It will save for quite some time in a Tupperware between use.