Have your children or grandchildren discovered slime yet? We’re on the fence about it. Yet with half term looming, we expect slime aplenty. It’s a rainy day distraction or perfect weekend activity. It comes in almost any colour imaginable, it’s stretchy, it bounces, oh, and it finds its way into places that only kids will find exciting.
So we thought it might be useful to present some top slime tips and ways to make your own slime in case you can’t get to the shops. On the one hand it’s a fun and cool gift for one child to present (forgive the pun) to another for their birthday. On the other hand, as the receiving parent, it’s only fun until it gets messy! You can’t even hide it, because the gloop seems on a forever mission to leak elsewhere.
Whether you’re at home for the holidays or spending half term in a holiday cottage, note to self: hold on to the original packaging!
Our top slime tips
- You’ll need a plastic spatula – this stuff can creep into orifices previously unconsidered. With the exception of the thinnest strands, you’ll be able to scrape out most of it with a plastic spatula – the kitchen worktop will be restored in seconds
- Don’t leave the slime unattended – wherever you put the gloop, its natural instinct is to seep and spread
- Don’t withdraw the slime and put it in a hard to reach place while you resolve the tantrum – before you know it, it will be in places that’ll only upset the fray further, not to mention create work for you to ungunk it from its newest exploration
- Do provide props to use gloop for science experiments of the coolest kind…
- The slime volcano: roll out the sludgy stuff and put a drinking straw into a bowl or empty tub, lay the rolled out stuff over the top of the bowl and blow through the straw. Watch the magna rise!
- Do use slime for tactical and sensory play. Providing you can keep the kids from putting it in their mouths, it’s a great source of fun for all ages: stretch it, poke holes in it, squeeze it and wait for the chuckles when it takes on the sounds of a whoopie cushion, pretend it’s pizza dough, knead it like bread, watch it transform from one shape to another.
- Unlike play dough, combining multiple colours of slime won’t result in a brown toy
How to make slime
If you’ve exhausted the children’s interest in baking, revive their interest in the kitchen with the offer of making slime. We’ve found a recipe that avoids using borax and contains only glue, water, salt and food colouring.
Blue Peter slime moments
Here’s an idea or two we made earlier. When plain old gloop fails to lure the kids away from the iPad, these ideas will restore their love of it and your faith in crafting with kids.
- Slime in jar – more imaginative than you’d think. Decorate the jar with a black stripe of tape and some googly eyes, use more black tape to create a mouth, put a strip of blue tape underneath. Fill the jar with yellow gloop and what have you got? A minion, of course!
- Rainbow slime – when making your own slime, split the batch into smaller pots before adding colour. Make as many small batches as you have colours (or you can be bothered to mix – think elbow grease) and make your own rainbow.
- Add glitter, beads or pom poms to jazz up the look and feel.
- For a half term or halloween twist, opt for orange food colouring!
Our verdict?
Someone should invent slime parties or the soft play of slime, so you can experience the oozy stuff outside the home. For now, bring back fidget spinners. Oh, and happy half term!
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