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March 17, 2005

Slime for my girl

Frankie turns 2 years old the 28th. To celebrate the upcoming energetic 2s, I'll be spending the day with her in daycare with all her little friends - helping, reading - and doing science experiments. If you Google "slime recipes", there is NO shortage of results. The various formulations provide gooey products with consistency ranging from slime to silly putty. I stumbled on one that's closer to the silly putty side of the continuum and isn't too messy. After all, there's a reason there's no frosting allowed on desserts in the Penguin Room.

Here's my version of Slime for Toddlers: A solution of Elmers White School Glue is mixed 1:1 (v/v) with water. This makes a soupy opaque white solution which can be colored with food dyes (I skipped the dyes at this stage). A second solution is mixed from 20 Mule Team Borax (10 grams) and warm water (270 grams). A ziploc baggie is charged with the glue solution (50 mL) followed by the Borax solution (20 mL) using a children's 5 mL medicine dropper. The ziploc bag is sealed and given to the child. The child kneads the initially soupy solution mixture and within a few minutes, the contents of the bag gels. The child is then allowed to remove the contents and play with their product. It's about the size of a golfball and can be stored in a small Ziploc container for days. I can't stop playing with mine.

I think this will be our sensory experience that day (if her teachers permit it).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can add acylic paint to the glue before mixing the cross-linker and it becomes bonded into the process and won't come off on your hands like food coloring or tempera paint.

Anonymous said...

Excellent. Thanks for stopping by with that suggestion! My daughter was sick on her birthday and we never got to do the experiment. We'll get to it soon though.

Thanks again.

Anonymous said...

Awesome! I'll have to make some for my oldest and hope that my youngest doesn't try to steal it and eat it. :-) Thanks for the recipe!

Anonymous said...

Hey Cassandra,

You'll have a blast with it yourself. I keep some in my office as a stress relief toy. Enjoy.