You might remember over the summer we took part in a couple of brilliant engineering challenges with The Holiday Makers.
The Holiday Makers is an absolutely fantastic series of fun and free engineering inspired activities for parents to do with their children. We have found it to be a great source of ideas and inspiration, with something to appeal to everyone.
The Holiday Makers is part of a government initiative called the Year of Engineering which aims to shake-up people’s ideas about engineering and inspire future generations of innovators, inventors and problem solvers.
Did you know that there’s a huge shortage of young people attracted to engineering jobs and a lack of diversity in the engineering profession? So this initiative is very much needed.
Easy Slime Recipe for Halloween
The Holiday Makers challenged us to make some Halloween Slime. There are lots of different recipes on the internet for slime, but this is the one that has worked the best for us.
What you need to make slime
You can find full instructions for how to make the slime here, but you will need the following ingredients:
3/4 cup of PVA glue
1/4 cup of water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Food colouring
1 tablespoon saline solution
Glitter and other decorations – optional
All you need to do is mix the ingredients together, adding the saline last. The mixture will start to stick together as soon as you stir in the saline solution ( slime activator ). It’s great fun to watch and do!
Slime Challenges
Can you mix slime colours to make a new colour? Our yellow and blue slime made green slime!
How far can you stretch the slime?
Can you find the perfect slime recipe by changing the amount of glue, water and baking soda?
Work as a team to make a slime sheet!
The engineering of slime
Slime is called a non-Newtonian fluid because their viscosity changes with changes in pressure or temperature. Another very simple non -Newtonian fluid can be made using just cornflour and water. This sticks together to form a solid when pressure is applied ( you squeeze it in your hands ) and flows when pressure is released.
Glue flows because the polymer chains slide over each other easily. The saline solution reacts with baking soda to form borate which forms bonds between the polymer chains of the glue. This is called cross linking and is what makes the slime mixture stick together.
Materials engineers design and make new materials every day. You can watch an interview with a materials engineer and discover the engineering behind biodegradable glitter on the Year of Engineering YouTube channel.
Special Events and Day Trips
Not only are there fun activities, but there are also exciting events and days out across the UK as part of The Holiday Makers. Enter your postcode on the website to find out what’s going on near you. We are quite close to the wonderful Winchester Science Museum where there is a Firework and Fairground show running through half term. If it’s anything like the Roald Dahl show we saw last year there I know if will be amazing!!
I love The Holiday Makers activities as just like Science Sparks the website hopes to capture the imagination of a generation of children, showing them the wonders of science and engineering and the future opportunities both fields can offer.
We would LOVE to see your half term slime creations so please do share and tag @ScienceSparks using #TheHolidayMakers
Post in collaboration with The Holiday Makers
Mellissa Williams
October 29, 2018 at 2:37 pmWhat a brilliant activity to make with kids. Things like this can spark conversations about science
MissPond
October 29, 2018 at 8:32 pmThis looks like so much fun! As a scientist myself I’m always happy to see kids getting involved in fun science activities 🙂 Hopefully it’ll inspire some scientists of the future!
Joanne Dewberry
November 9, 2018 at 1:38 pmArgh can’t stand slime!
But this does look pretty cool and the fact you can make it wth everyday items even better
Alex Gladwin
November 9, 2018 at 1:47 pmWe’ve never made slime before, I didn’t realise how simple it is to do. My boys would absolutely love this! xx