Museum of Science, Boston

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Slime Chemistry: Early Elementary-Schoolers






  

    

  Slime Chemistry can be a fun science activity for people of all ages. We provide these generalizations as guidelines about what children at different ages might do during Slime Chemistry explorations at the Discovery Center’s Experiment Station, in the kitchen at home, or at school.  Listed below are science and technology process skills that children may be practicing during their explorations. Please remember: each child develops at a different rate, so some children in each age group may be able to do some of the things described in the age group before or after their own.



How might early elementary schoolers explore Slime Chemistry?



  

      


  

    
Classify




Early elementary schoolers can compare the slime they made to other substances they’ve seen.  


They can debate about whether slime is a liquid or a solid.
  





  

    
Experiment - Early Elementary Schoolers




Early Elementary school children may enjoy mixing slightly different proportions* of the soap and glue mixtures and seeing how the properties of the slime change if there is more soap than usual or more glue than usual. 


* Try This!


Follow our slime recipe, but use  ¾ cup of Elmers © Glue instead of a full cup, or use ¾ Tbsp of Borax instead of a full Tbsp.
  





  

    
Hypothesize - Early Elementary Schoolers




Early elementary schoolers can guess what will happen when you mix all of the ingredients together. 


Does your child think the result will be a liquid or a solid? 


How do they think it will feel?
  





  

    
Observe




Early elementary schoolers can often draw conclusions based on their observations.  


They might notice that when they stretch slime too quickly it breaks.  


They might notice that slime bounces when dropped.


Early elementary schoolers might notice that slime becomes less 'slime-y' as  you play with it- this is because the heat from your hands encourages water in the slime to evaporate.