This rainbow bead sensory slime recipe is perfect for St. Patrick’s Day STEM sensory bins! activities or any time of year! Rainbow fun and stretchy slime fun! My preschooler loves making slime recipes. She can’t get enough of it! I’ve been trying to think of variations for her to play with for different experiences and ways to learn. This time, we used rainbow beads to add to our slime, giving her an extra level of sensory experience in the slime. Learn how to make slime with beads below! She ended up counting the beads as she pulled them from the slime, which helped her develop fine motor skills and math skills at the same time!
Easy Sensory Slime Recipe for Kids
Read on to see how to make the very best sensory slime recipe perfect for ST. Patrick’s Day!
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Sensory Slime Science
Slime is made when boron mixes with the polymer chains in the glue, creating strong, but flexible bonds between the molecules. There are so many fun tweaks you can make to a basic slime recipe, like my kid’s favorite, the best fluffy slime!
Since this slime does contain borax, if you have a sensitivity to it, you may want to learn how to make slime with baking soda instead.
Don’t forget to try our other St. Patrick’s Day slime recipes: rainbow slime, St. Patrick’s Day slime, and the St. Patrick’s Day bouncy ball slime. And get all our slime recipes here!
Tips for How to Make Slime with Beads
If this is your first time making slime, you should follow along with our post on slime troubleshooting. Luckily, liquid laundry starch slime made with clear glue is the easiest slime recipe.
If you don’t want to waste a lot of ingredients, try mixing up a small batch first to make sure you won’t have to tweak it before you make the larger version.
We always stock up on gallon sizes of glue and the large laundry starch just in case something goes wrong (but it almost always goes smoothly).
How to Make the Rainbow Sensory Slime Recipe
Follow these directions and you’ll have the best sensory slime ever!
What supplies do I need to make this St. Patrick’s Day sensory slime recipe?
Here are the supplies that you need to make this sensory slime recipe to go along with your other St. Patrick’s Day STEM activities.
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.
- Laundry starch
- Rainbow beads (ours came from Amazon)
- Clear glue
- Green food coloring (we swear by this brand for making brilliant colors)
- Large play tray
All-in-One Slime Kits
These slime craft kits include everything you need to make slime creation even easier!
All of these slime craft ideas show up right on your doorstep in just a few days!
More St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Kids
Here are some more fun hands-on activities to try this Saint Patrick’s Day!
- St. Patrick’s Day Slime Coin Treasure Hunt
- St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Kids
- How to Make a LEGO Rainbow with Classic LEGO Bricks
- Rainbow Coke and Mentos Science Experiment
What to add to slime
Here are some fun things you can add to slime to make it more exciting no matter what recipe you use!
- Slime add-ins and toys
- Non-toxic slime scents
- Foam, foil, beads, sprinkles, and other popular slime add-ins in one organized set
- Polymer clay fruit and animal add-ins
- Slime sensory kit
- Slime rackets
- Fishbowl beads
- Instant snow powder
- Non-drying clay
And you always want to keep a bottle of slime reactivator on hand so your slime doesn’t get too sticky over time!
Step-by-Step Directions to Make the Rainbow Sensory Slime Recipe
Let your preschooler have some sensory fun with this contrasting textures sensory slime recipe!
Before playing, mix up the slime. You can have your kids help with this, or if you don’t want the trouble, do it ahead of time.
We typically use a ratio of one part glue, one part water, and one part starch for all of our stretchy slimes.
We’ve tried other slime recipes, but this is our favorite because it stretches easily without breaking.
In this particular case, we used 1/2 a cup of water, starch, and glue. Mix the water, glue and food coloring together before adding the starch or you’ll end up with a huge mess.
After mixing the slime, let it rest about five minutes before adding the beads.
Add a handful of beads (or you can use a specific number if you’re working on counting to 20 or 100) and mix them in the slime.
Give the slime to your kids on a large play tray (we love this one).
Let them play with the slime and remove the beads from the slime. As they try to remove the beads, the slime with stretch and provide tons of sensory fun.
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