Glow in the Dark Bouncy (Splat) Balls
So, this project just makes me laugh at how it turned out! :) I thought I was going to be such a fun, cool mom when I found the recipe for "bouncy balls" on pinterest. Ok, so it did say the texture would be similar to slime and that the balls would lose their shape after awhile. But I was not prepared for what actually transpired when we made these little blobs of goo. However, all in all, this project was maybe the highlight of the week for my little slime lovers as we have never created anything quite like this before! (From here on out, we are renaming them Splat Balls!)
Supplies:
🔲Borax
🔲cornstarch
🔲water
🔲glow in the dark paint (you can use any kind of paint if you don't care about them glowing)
🔲white school glue
To Make:
Begin by placing 1/2 tsp Borax and 4 T corn starch in a small bowl. Add in 4 T warm water and mix well, until all powder is dissolved. (This is basically making ooblek, which is a really fun experiment in and of itself!)
In a second bowl, mix 1 T white glue with 1 tsp paint. Then add the glue mixture to the corn starch mixture. Let it sit for 1-2 minutes while it activates.
Begin to stir and it will quickly form a very wet, sticky slime like consistency. Then remove from the bowl and begin kneadng with your hands. Continue kneading, stretching and pulling at the slime. It will become less wet, harder, but still moldable.
Here's where the whole thing just fell apart. According to the directions I read, you are supposed to continue kneading until the mixture starts to firm up. Then form it into a ball and experiment with bouncing it on surfaces. Ummm, not exactly. It firmed up a bit, but it never really got hard enough to make a ball and stay in a ball. We followed the directions to a T, tried to bounce the ball on the floor, and all we got was a big splat!
It was actually hilarious, the kids loved it, and it cleaned right up so that they could splat it all over again. Splat on the walls, splat on the floor, splat on the fridge--They loved their splat balls!
After we tried out our splat balls on every surface in the kitchen, we decided to mix the colors. We broke our balls into four parts and divided them so that everyone got one piece of each color. Then we began mixing them together to make rainbow balls so we could make rainbow splats!
No matter how long or hard we kneaded, the mixture just never became fully solid. If we held it in a ball shape in our hands, it almost automatically collapsed into a pool of slime.
They were beautiful and bright under the black light, so the glow part was spot on. But I am still shaking my head in confusion that these could ever be called bouncy balls. Whatever, they were still fun! Your kids will love making them. And they really do just peel right off the floor or countertop. When you're all done, you can store them in a sealed bag in the fridge and bring them out for more splat ball fun another day.
Did your balls splat or bounce? Let us know @little.sunshine.mom!☀️