Spooky Slime

What you’ll need:

¼ cup of Elmer’s glue
¼ cup of water
¼ teaspoon of baking soda
1 tablespoon of contact lens solution with boric acid
A few drops of food colouring
A bowl and a mixing spoon

A close-up of hands mixing up blue slime in a plastic bowl.

Activity setup:

Grab your bowl and add the glue. Mix the water into the glue and stir until fully blended. Add in 2-3 drops of food coloring and stir again until fully blended. Add the baking soda and contact lens solution to your bowl.
Mix all the ingredients together until you have a slime consistency.
There you have it…instant slime! Let’s experiment with it. How sticky is your slime? How stretchy and tough?

Pro tip: If your slime is too soft, try adding a little more of the contact lens solution.

A close-up of a child's hand dripping with pink slime.

What's Happening:

Elmer’s glue is a kind of plastic made from oil called copolymer polyvinyl alcohol or “PVA” for short. When you add water to glue, the PVA starts to dissolve. But, when you add the contact lens solution, it reacts with the dissolved PVA to link the molecules back together into a new material, like the slime you just created.

Warning: Your slime may stain or get stuck in carpets. Do not eat.