Making our own bouncy ball

All the positive comments in regards to my excitement about my laminator made me feel less alone in the world! I'm glad to know that somewhere out there people get it! The love affair is still continuing! But that's something for another day. Tonight, I'm here to tell you about something on our summer bucket list. I've been waiting and waiting (because I ran out of glue, and kept forgetting to buy more) to make our very own bouncy balls. One of my favorite blogs, Come Together Kids, posted all about making them. It requires just a handful of ingredients: Elmer's glue, borax, cornstarch, and warm water. I do have a word of advice for this particular project. Do it outside. Preferably  in a swim suit or play clothes. At the very least, learn from my mistake, and put something down to cover your floor. There's nothing quite as fun as having to scrub your whole floor right after having some messy good times. But, just one look at the kiddo's face and it was all worth it. 

Okay, that's not the face I was just talking about. He's doing his pretend smile here. I do still love it though, so maybe that face. I had him dump one tablespoon of glue into each bowl and pick out his colors. His first request was for pink, but we were out of red food coloring. (I really have to go shopping...... and start making a list)! So, with a sigh, he settled on green and blue. 

We added a couple of drops to the glue, and then Logan stirred. He loved the way the color seemed spread out in the glue.

Then we combined a 1/2 teaspoon of Borax, 3 tablespoons of cornstarch, and 4 tablespoons of warm water into a separate bowl. Once he stirred until there were no more lumps (with some help from his Mama), my little peanut dumped that bowl into the glue.

Then there was some more stirring. It was a great work out for those toddler arms! A clump was formed, and then I had him try to roll it into a ball.

He rolled some, would wipe his hands, and then roll some more.

He worked on the green, but for some reason that one refused to stay together. We abandoned it, and started working on the blue. Blue was much more successful.

Ta-da! Here is our (almost) finished product in one incredibly adorable little hand:

After putting it in a container, it did lose it's shape. I was able to get it back to it's formerly round self pretty easily. This is something that we'll definitely do again. I promised him we would make pink next time. 

Hey? Want the recipe broken down for you? Go over here. Laura does a fantastic job of explaining it step by step.