When I first heard that children could make their own bouncy balls, I thought it was too good to be true! The best part is that they’re so easy to make. A simple recipe translates to a day of summer fun.
Materials:
For each ball that you make, you'll need:
- 1 T. white glue
- 1/2 tsp. borax powder (can be found in the laundry detergent aisle of most grocery/department stores)
- food coloring
- 3 T. cornstarch
- 4 T. warm water
Instructions
In one cup, combine the warm water, cornstarch and borax. In another cup or bowl, put the glue. - Next, add several drops of food coloring to the white glue and stir well.
- Give your water/borax/cornstarch mixture a good stir to combine all the ingredients (the cornstarch has a tendency to settle on the bottom).
Then pour the water mixture into the colored glue. - Stir and you’ll see it immediately start to clump together. Stir a bit more until you have one big, slimy glob.
- Take the glob out of the liquid and begin rolling it between the palms of your hands to form a ball. It’ll be sticky at first, so keep a paper towel handy
to wipe off your hands occasionally. Soon a rubbery ball will form. (We found that just using our palms seemed to work better than using our whole hands and fingers.) - Once the stickiness is gone and you have a nice smooth ball, that’s it! You can bounce away!
The balls will flatten out after sitting for a while, but storing them in small plastic containers and then rolling them between your palms again will help the super bouncy balls regain their shape. Keep on bouncing!
