Homemade Slime!

I know we've made slime before. In fact, you can find the post here,  but this time around I thought it would be cool to make glitter slime! Too bad it didn't turn out the way I wanted. I believe I added too much Borax and what we ended up making was more like the consistency of a bouncy ball rather than slime. Although it wasn't truly slime the kids still enjoyed playing with it. 

Slime Take 1

Slime Take 2

Luckily I had another bottle of Elmer's glue laying around so I made another batch of slime...this time I was careful and added the Borax mixture a little bit at a time so that I could get the consistency right. 

The recipe I used does contain Borax so I was right by the kids' side when playing reminding them to keep it away from their mouths. Next time I am going to try a recipe that is Borax free. I found a recipe with Metamucil so I may give that a try. Below is the recipe that I used.

Recipe:

1 bottle of Elmer's Glue

1/4 cup warm water

1/2 tsp Borax

food coloring if you want

Directions:

1. Dissolve the Borax in the warm water (warm water helps it to dissolve)

2. Empty the bottle of glue into a bowl. Add a drop of color and mix in. 

3. Add the Borax mixture a little at a time and mix well. Mixing it with your hands is best! 

Of course the first thing Camden did was make a run for his cars. Any time we make any kind of substance he loves to run his cars through it and make tracks. The nice thing is that the cars don't stick it the slime. 

Alex liked stretching it

I knew I saved some baby jars for some reason! Great storage for slime! 

In the future I do want to try to make a Borax free version and when I do I'll post it so stay tuned! 

Oh one more thing....I really should have taken a picture this morning. I came downstairs and found slime stuck on the wall! Luckily because it was a thin layer and the glue had dried it peeled right off. A little magic eraser got the rest off. This morning Camden also got some stuck on his shirt. That was a little harder to remove...hoping the rest comes off in the washer! 

Cloud Dough

My kids love playing with Play-doh. I like it and loathe it at the same time. I like it because it keeps them entertained for 45 minutes (not bad for a 5 year old and 3 year old) but loathe it because every time they play with it more ends up on the floor than on the table. I always have them play with it on a table on a tile floor....but with carpet nearby I feel I'm constantly nagging at them "Keep it on the table!!!", "Don't drag it onto the carpet", "Pick it up if you drop it", and "When you're done put the cap on it or it will dry out".It's tiring!!!

Last week we had a nice day so I decided to try a different type of dough - cloud dough. I thought I'd take it outside and they could play with it out there. That way if it drops it's no biggie. Camden always loves dragging his construction vehicles in things so I figured he would love to do that and sure enough that's how he spent the entire time playing.

The recipe for cloud dough is simple with two ingredients: flour and baby oil. I found a recipe that where you use 1/4 cup oil for 2 cups flour. I started with this and just added more oil or flour until it felt like I could mold it.

It was definitely a hit! Alex and Camden seem to love sensory play! I'll be breaking out this recipe again sometime when the weather is consistently nice and we can head out back on the deck!

Cloud Dough Recipe:

1/4 cup baby oil

2 cups flour

Mix until combined. Add more oil or flour until you can mold the dough.

Wonder Dough

We had no play dough in the house so the other week I thought I'd make "Wonder Dough". This dough only used two ingredients in the recipe: corn starch and tempera paint, both of which I had in my house. As I was making it I was wondering if it would be easily washed off of hands....I was very happy with the results. 

The kids loved playing with the dough. Alex loved making it stretch out and Camden enjoyed sticking things into it. 

I found the recipe at  Growing a Jeweled Rose. Basically all you do is mix corn starch and paint together. I just did it by sight and added more starch as needed. Simple and fun! 

The best part: While playing with the dough the kids' hands looked like this- bright pink!!!!

 But after a simple washing of their hands they were clean and you would never have known they were playing with the dough!