This rainbow bead sensory slime recipe is perfect for St. Patrick’s Day STEM 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 Preschoolers
Related: The Ultimate Guide to Slime Recipes
Read on to see how to make the very best sensory slime recipe! And 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.
Preschool 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, fluffy slime!
Since this slime does contain borax, if you have a sensitivity to it, you may want to try our baking soda slime instead.
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).
Slime with Beads Recipe
Follow these directions and you’ll have the sensory slime ever!
What you’ll need to make the best sensory slime with beads:
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.
Elmer’s Liquid School Glue, Premium Clear, Washable, 1 Gallon, 1 Count – Great For Making SlimeFood Coloring Liqua-Gel – 6 Color Rainbow Kit in .75 fl. oz. (20ml) BottlesPurex Sta-Flo Liquid Starch, 64 OunceOriginal Stationery Arts and Crafts Glitter Shake Jars, Extra Fine, 24 Multi color Set
- 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
Sensory Slime Time
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.
More St. Patrick’s Day Science Activities
St. Patrick’s Day STEM Activities