If you have a hard time choosing what kind of slime you’d like to create because you love all the colors of the rainbow, you’re in luck. This easy rainbow slime recipe is a great sensory activity that can help your kids learn about colors, develop their little hand muscles, and help boost their creativity.
While many recipes focus in on one specific color, this slime recipe uses all different types of food coloring to create different colors of slime. It’s an easy DIY project that will help you create fun memories with your kids.
You can even casually explain that it’s a chemical reaction. Kids who are hesitant about science will likely find slime exciting and fun, and might become more open to science as a whole. Plus, you might be surprised that you already have all of the slime ingredients available at home.
Just make sure to keep an eye on your kids when making slime to prevent any incidents, and have them wash their hands when they are done playing to get rid of all the goop. Not only will adult supervision keep them safe, they will remember how much fun they had enjoying sensory activities with their parents!
Rainbow Slime Ingredients
- 5 oz clear Elmer’s school glue (NOT white glue)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp contact lens solution
- 1/2 cup of warm water
- Red, yellow, and blue food coloring
OTHER MATERIALS:
- 6 small bowls
- wooden spoon or spatula for mixing
RECREATE THIS EASY RAINBOW SLIME RECIPE
You heard right, there are only 5 ingredients necessary for this fun slime recipe. The base of the slime uses clear glue, contact solution, baking soda, and a half cup of water. The food colouring will give it the rainbow look you’re going for. You can also use glitter glue that matches each color for some extra pizzazz.
If you only have red, yellow, and blue food coloring to create the rainbow, remember: red + yellow = orange, yellow + blue = green, and red + blue = purple. This activity can help your kids practice color mixing and learn the colors of the rainbow!
This recipe calls for the whole glue bottle, or you can measure the glue into a measure cup if you have 1 quart Elmer’s washable clear glue in your supplies storage. I bought the big one so I can make all my favorite slime recipes back-to-back. It’s a great way to save money if you’ll be trying out different colors or textures of slime.
You can use any kind of baking soda powder to make your slimes. The same goes with contact solution as your slime activator – you can use any brand of contact solution, but the most important thing to keep in mind is to make sure the exact contact solution has sodium borate, boric acid, or borax powder. These ingredients mixed with PVA glue makes this gooey, stretchy slime consistency that you can play with!
NOTE: Take safety precautions into consideration if you create different batches and add to the ingredient list. Certain ingredients like star-shaped glitter can poke your kids and make it a less pleasant experience.
HOW TO MAKE THE BEST SLIME WITH CONTACT SOLUTION
1. Mix clear Elmer’s glue and 1/2 cup water together in a medium size bowl until the glue incorporates into the water.
2. Separate the glue mixture into 6 separate bowls.
3. Add 2 drops of food coloring to each bowl to represent each color of the rainbow, and mix until well blended. If you only have primary colors, you might have to mix them to create new colors.
4. Distribute baking soda equally across the bowls and stir until blended.
5. Add in contact solution and stir well to combine together. Stir until slime begins to form together, add more saline solution if needed.
6. Knead the slime until it gets less sticky and is easily removable from the container.
7. Roll the first colored slime into a “snake” shape, then move onto the next color and do the same, making sure you separate each different color.
8. Arrange each color of slime to be next to each other in the order of the rainbow, and bend them to form a rainbow shape!
HOW TO KEEP THE COLORS SEPARATE
As you likely already know, if your kids mix all the rainbow colors together, they’ll get a yucky brown color. To permanently separate each different color, you can create your own rainbow slime kit by putting the different colors in an airtight container with separate compartments, like an embroidery thread box. This is an especially great idea if you’ll make the slime before your kids play with it, or if each kid wants to make their own rainbow and you need some storage time.
Keep in mind that it isn’t necessarily bad to mix the colors, though. It can be good for kids to learn from experience and develop their understanding of colors.
CONCLUSION
While rainbow slime is a bit more advanced than our easiest slime recipe, it’s still easy enough to pull off with your kids. If you hope to use slime as a learning tool, this is one of the best types of slime you can try!
If you and your kids enjoyed experimenting with rainbow slime, try another recipe from our site, like winter slime or cloud dough.