Make Your Own Bouncy Balls - Guest Post from Adventures of Home Life

I am delighted to have a guest post from Adventures of Home Life. If you haven't checked out this blog yet, you must head over as soon as you finish reading this. In it, a mom shares her crafts and projects, easy recipes and parenting experiences. I think you will find yourself encouraged and inspired as you read her stuff. Today we will be learning how to make bouncy balls which I never even knew you could do at home.

I don't know about your house, but mine is filled with those small rubber bouncy balls. The Older collects them, and it seems like anytime we go to a restaurant with vending machine games, he gets a pocketful of them. I can't stand him spending money on these things, so I've told him no more. He loves them though, so I decided he could have them if we made them ourselves. Setup was pretty easy, and I had all of the supplies here at home.

• 2 plastic cups (I labeled mine "Borax" and "Ball" so I wouldn't get confused
• Warm water
• Borax
• Food coloring (optional)
• White/school glue
• Cornstarch
• Tablespoon
• Teaspoon
• Zipper baggie

Combine 2 Tablespoons of warm water and 1/2 teaspoon of Borax and mix in the "Borax" cup. Stir together. Add food coloring if desired. In the "Ball" cup, put 1 tablespoon of glue. Add 1/2 teaspoon of the Borax solution and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. DO NOT STIR this, but let the ingredients react for about 15-30 seconds, then stir.

 

Continue to stir this mixture until it becomes almost impossible to do so anymore. It will look something like this when it's ready:

 

Place in your hands and roll into a ball shape. It will be sticky, but the stickiness will decrease the longer you roll it between your hands.

 This is close to what your finished product will look like:

 
The Older really enjoyed this, and I made it into a learning activity as well. I used measuring spoons that were 1/2 tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon so that he would need to do some math to figure out how to follow the recipe with exact measurments. The Younger enjoyed it too, but she needed a lot more assistance. I allowed her to stir the mixtures and let her help roll the balls, but that's about all she could handle. They both had a great time playing with the balls though, and they made up some pretty neat games. Their favorite was bouncing the balls in the hallway to trying and get them into a cup.

 

I do suggest playing with these balls indoors because they seemed to pick up some dirt when we played with them on the patio. Also, if you want to make it more of a science experiment, let the kids alter the amounts of the ingredients to see what happens to the mixture, how it changes the way the balls form, and how they bounce. The Older spent a good hour doing this! When you're finished playing with the balls, you can then put them in a zippered bag so that they don't dry out. They'll last a while that way. Most of all, have fun! I know the kids will :-)

Thank you! What a great idea! I love how the kids will be learning about science and math all while having fun making a ball. We are definitely going to try this! Here are some of my favorite posts from Adventures of Home Life:

Ladybug Craft for Spring

Noddle Craft

Hole Punch Fun