The Making of a Polymer AKA Flubber or Silly Putty
Flubber is a homemade version of silly putty. It’s cold, slimy, a solid that flows and incredibly fun to poke, stretch and play around with. Especially for those tactile loving kids!! And it’s a nice break from playdough.
You will need 1 1/2 cups warm water
2 cups white glue
1 1/3 cups warm water
3 tsp Borax
food coloring
mixing bowl and spoon
This could get messy –so be prepared
In a large tubby combine food coloring, glue and 1 1/2 cups warm water
In a smaller container, combine 1 1/3 cups warm water and Borax. Mix ingredients in each container thoroughly.
Pour contents of smaller container into larger container. Gently lift and turn the mixture with a metal spoon until only about a tablespoon of liquid is left.
Flubber will be sticky for a moment or two. Let the excess liquid drip off-then it is ready. Stretch it, bounce it, roll it!
Flubber is an example of a non-Newtonian substance-appears to be a liquid and a solid at the same time. Here is some science behind it.
Store tightly covered for up to 3 weeks.
Tags: AKA Flubber, borax, flubber, food coloring, glue, Mix, mix ingredients, mixture, Newtonian, photo, photos, playdough, polymer, science, silly putty, Stretch, tactile
we make this all the time. so easy and it keeps the kids entertained for hours!!
Just a side note after making this 100′s of times over the years, don’t use “school glue” it’s different then regular all purpose Elmers glue and it causes the flubber to be crumbly instead of gooey and slimy. 
It took me forever to figure out what had gone wrong with our flubber.
I used to keep my neices and nephews alot.They are all grown now,but when I knew they were coming I AlWAYS tried to come up with something to do.This was one of them.They loved it and still talk about. I gave them all a bowl with glue,let them pick what color and then went a poured the borax and the look on their faces was priceless.
I used to do this all the time with my mother and father. It was so fun, it made me happy, and it made them happy. FAMILY BONDING ROCKSS!!!