Homemade Slime Experiments

Alpharetta Christian Academy elementary students participated in a special science day, during which they learned about the superabsorbent material inside of diapers and then made slime. In addition, they learned that sometimes things don’t go as planned, and they must persevere and keep experimenting until they find what works. That’s all part of science and life.

The first students who experimented began by cutting open diapers and shaking out the absorbent material. They were looking for the white powdery substance that looks like salt. When they added water to the powder and stirred it up, it soaked up all the water and became white and fluffy. The kids enjoyed playing in it.

Students added water to the absorbent material from a diaper.

Things got tricky here. According to directions found on the internet, they were to add white school glue and Tide Free and Clear to the absorbent material to make fluffy slime. The result was slimy and fluffy, but even after much kneading, it was a gooey, sticky mess.

Sometimes experiments don’t go as planned.

Since experimenting involves changing a variable at a time, the kids next mixed the glue and Tide mixture without including the diaper material. The slime was much better but not what they wanted. They then adjusted the proportions of Tide and glue, and the results were better still. The final adjustment was to use regular Tide instead of Tide Free and Clear. At that point, they had the desired results.

This slime turned out as we wanted it to.

To summarize, the final proportions were to add ¼ cup regular Tide to ½ cup white Elmer’s glue, then knead the substance until the desired texture was achieved. The addition of any diaper material made the slime gooey and messy. As a side note, the first kids to experiment got a do-over later so they could see the final results. In science and in life, sometimes things don’t go as planned, but we have to persevere and keep trying. Maybe along the way, we will have fun and learn something.