Homemade Bouncy Balls

My science experiment for tomorrow comes from www.sciencebob.com again. I'm moving away from the vegetable oil/vinegar/baking soda concoctions and into more direction involved experiments. It might be a little difficult but tomorrow we are making:

Bouncy Balls!

I went on a mad goose chase this afternoon looking for Borax and finally found it at Safeway. Kinda expensive but hopefully I'll get some more use out of it than just tomorrow. The ingredients for this project are:

• Warm water
• Cornstarch
• Borax
• White glue
• Food coloring

The directions are on the link that I listed above so I won't waste your time going over the whole experiment. Here is the typical science worksheet:

Rationale behind this activity:

• Reading instructions
• Making predictions
• Motivation (for each activity that he finishes during therapy he earns an ingredient)
• Following directions
• Thinking about first, then, finally
• Using compare and contrast thinking 

WHOOPS:

So I just tried this. 5 TIMES. From 5 different recipes. And it didn't work. My hands are now covered in glue, stained blue from food coloring, and have a weird smell. So I wouldn't recommend doing this. However, since it is the night before my lesson and I have a full day tomorrow, it is either do this experiment or nothing. And I think my kid would riot if I didn't have science. So... I think we'll probably do it. Then, I might tell a white lie and say that the ball needs to dry over the weekend. Since I know it won't work, I'll just go buy a bouncy ball and give it to him on Tuesday and explain that the experiment didn't work. I'm not a horrible person, right? Yay, failed science for everyone! 

The mess I got left with...

Bouncy ball fail