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The popularity of slime has increased drastically in recent years. Especially among kids, this vividly colourful, gooey and sticky substance has taken a huge market as favourite toys to play with. Thanks to the ability to customize its ingredients and colour, your kids would surely be asking to have their slime toys to play with, if they are aware of the product. What brings more fun to the toy unlike other toys is that you can prepare it at home and tailor it to your kid’s liking. Here, we will be looking at some of the easiest ways to make slime, the advantages of slime for kids, games that you can play with slime and some of the precautions that need to be taken.

Why You Should Let Your Kids Play with Slime?

Creating a Connection between Kids

Source 30seconds.com I Kids making slime

Making slime together with your kids allows for a period of interacting, having a conversation with them and teaching them a thing or two about the different recipes that can be used. Also, in school, making slime can be used as a learning lesson and tutorials. It is the bond between kids themselves that are improved while playing with slime together, whether at home or school. They can constantly interact with each other, guide each other and have fun, which makes their conversational and social skills better.

Improving Cognition

Source newatlas.com I Improve cognition

A certain level of creativity and imagination is required in the slime-making process. The first thing that they will learn without a doubt is the skills of blending and kneading the ingredients. The sensory excitement of the process is good fun to have. And, this experience facilitates more learning. In this process, they also learn new words and their meaning and how different kind of slimes are created when ingredients are changed. So, all these actions of mixing and kneading, despite the mess that they create, improve their cognitive abilities.

Building Confidence in Kids

Source tinkerlab.com I Building child confidence

Confidence is a very important attribute in the process of growth and learning among children. Such confidence comes with trust in your abilities to achieve results. As your kids might already have seen people preparing slime on Youtube, achieving similar results themselves is a really good boost to their confidence and trust in their skills. It will increase their confidence if the parents share the enthusiasm shown by the kids in their success. Also, they become more adept at speaking with other people and kids, as they play together.

Relaxation and Entertainment

Source shutterstock.com I Kids playing slime

Slime is already an excellent toy to have, even just for its entertainment value. Who would not love to get their hands on this gluey gooey substance? But playing with slime is also a very useful way to relax. It helps relieve exhaustion and tiredness in them and provide them with a relaxing toy to play with. In the age where people and even kids are subjected to anxiety and depression, these slime toys act as anti-stress and anti-depressant tools by helping them relax and giving them something to focus upon.

How to Make Slime Easily?

Simple Slime

Source momstown.ca I Simple slime

This is one of the easiest ways to make slime. You don’t need a lot of ingredients to make this kind of slime. However, the slime can get stiff on consistent use.

What You Need

  • ¼ cup of Borax
  • 1 oz School Glue
  • ¼ cup Water
  • Two bowls
  • Food colouring (optional)

How to Make It:

  • Take a bowl with the glue and water and mix them. Add food colouring to the mixture if colour is needed.
  • To the mixture, add ¼ cup of Borax and stir slowly.
  • Stir continuously, and check the changes of consistency in the solution with a stir stick.
  • Now, knead the slime with your hands to make it less sticky. This process facilitates the complete bonding of the two compounds.
  • Put the slime in a plastic bag and store it in the fridge to avoid it from hardening.
  • For future preparations, try out different kinds of glue for different textures.

Slime with Synthetic Polymer

Source stevespanglerscience.com I Slime with Synthetic Polymer

This type of slime is very gooey and quite easy to make. Also, the synthetic polymer used in making the slime, Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA), is non-toxic. However, you should wash your hands thoroughly after use.

What You Need

  • ½ cup of PVA
  • 2 teaspoon Borax
  • Food Colouring (optional)

How to Make It:

  • Put PVA into a bowl and add food colouring, if desired.
  • Add borax into the solution and stir slowly.
  • Check for consistency by lifting it with a stir stick and stop when the desired level is achieved.
  • The slime is ready to play with. However, to prevent it from drying out, store it in a fridge inside a plastic bag for future use.

Slime without Borax

Source thefrugalnavywife.com I Borax free slime

Although borax has been one of the main ingredients in making slime, it is not without side effects. One of the potential effects of prolonged borax exposure is skin irritation. But, fortunately, borax is not a must-have ingredient and there are a lot of ways that slime can be prepared without borax. Here is one of them.

What You Need

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 bottles of Elmer’s white glue
  • 2-3 tablespoon contact lens solution
  • Glitter (optional)
  • Liquid food colouring (optional)

How to Make It:

  • Take the glue in a bowl and add baking soda to it.
  • Food colouring and glitter can be added to the mixture if desired. Stir the solution until it is smooth.
  • Add the contact lens solution into the mixture and continue stirring. The solution will begin to harden with the addition.
  • Keep on mixing the solution until it takes the form of a ball.
  • Knead the slimes with your hand until it is smooth. Add ½ tablespoon of contact lens solution if the solution is too slimy.
  • The slime is ready to use or store it in an airtight container for future use.

Fluffy Slime (with Shaving Cream)

Source iheartnaptime.net I Fluffy slime

Another great way to make slime with things lying around in your house is the fluffy slime. Kids are especially attracted to this particular slime due to its texture and squishing fluffy nature. Depending upon the amount of the shaving cream in the mixture, the texture and fluff of the slime can be customized. However, the fluff only lasts a day and the slime will act as a regular slime from the next day onwards.

What You Need

  • 8 ounces of Elmer’s white glue
  • 2 cups of white shaving cream
  • ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1 ½ tablespoon Contact Lens Solution
  • Food colouring (optional)

How to Make It:

  • Put the glue in a bowl.
  • Pour water and baking soda into it and mix it gently.
  • Now, add the shaving cream and continue stirring the mixture.
  • Add food colouring to the bowl, if desired and continue stirring.
  • Finally, put a tablespoon contact lens solution into the mix and knead it properly for a few minutes. Add half tablespoon of contact solution and knead the slime again to make it fluffy.

Slime with Shampoo (without Glue)

Source youtube.com I Slime with Shampoo

Using glue to make slime can make them quite sticky and this can lead to staining and ruining your clothes with them. With shampoo, this damage is mitigated and also, everyone has shampoo in their home. So, you can make this kind of slime out of things in your home.

What You Need

  • ½ cup thick shampoo
  • 2 ½ cup cornstarch
  • ¼ cup of water
  • Food Colouring (optional)

How to Make It:

  • Pour the shampoo in a bowl. The thicker the shampoo, the thicker the slime becomes.
  • Add food colouring to the bowl, if desired. Stir the mixture slowly.
  • Add the cornstarch into the bowl and stir gently to form a thick, crispy paste.
  • Add 2 tablespoons of water to the bowl and continue stirring as the paste becomes slimy. Add more water if necessary.
  • Knead the slime with your hands and stretch it until it becomes smooth.

Slime with Shampoo and Toothpaste

Source lifehacker.com I Slime with Shampoo and Toothpaste

Who will not have some shampoo and toothpaste in their home? This type of slime is one of the easiest ways to make slime materials, almost sure to be present in everyone’s home. Make sure that you choose a thick shampoo though.

What You Need

  • 2 tablespoons Shampoo (thick in nature)
  • 1 teaspoon toothpaste
  • Food colouring (optional)

How to Make It:

  • Put the shampoo in a bowl and add food colouring, if desired.
  • Now, add the toothpaste in the bowl and begin stirring.
  • Stir until the mixture forms a gooey substance.
  • Depending on the mixture, add either shampoo or toothpaste, if necessary, and stir it. Add shampoo to make it soft and add toothpaste to stiffen it.
  • Now, freeze the slime for 10 to 60 minutes to make it firm and ready to play with.

Slime Games and Fun Ways to Play with Slime!

Making Shapes

Source fredericknewspost.com I Making shape with slime

The gluey and elastic nature of slime means that different shapes can be made with it. Your kids can learn the shapes and their names from their early childhood through the use of slime. Make a straight line, circle, square, rectangle, triangle or any shape that you want your kids to learn. Ask them to remember the names as they make these shapes by themselves. The knowledge of shapes is a very important attribute to have for latter years of education and kids should learn them early on. Furthermore, learning pre-writing lines and shapes will aid the kids in learning to handwrite in the future.

Creating Imprints in Slime through Letter Magnets

Source brave-the-elements.com I Creating Imprints in Slime through Letter Magnets

Since kids would love to be playing with slime, why not put some educational value to this fun activity. Take the letter and number magnets and put them on the surface of the slime. Now, pointing out to each one of them, one at a time, ask the kid to repeat the letter or the number with you. You can incorporate this method into your kids’ everyday life during the initial period of learning. Raise the difficulty slowly into teaching about spelling and words.

You can even use coins to teach them basic math like addition and subtraction. In this way, without losing the joy, kids end up learning something too.

Hide-and-Seek Games

Source etsy.com I Hide-and-Seek games with slime

Hide small objects into the slime and ask your kids to find them. This treasure hunt game would motivate your kids to find the objects. Also, you can make them count how many objects did they discover or you can put in objects with different colours and make them identify the colour.

Things Parents Should be Mindful About

Don’t Let Your Children Make Slime on Their Own

Source youtube.com I Watch children when making slime

Some type of slime toys contains harmful material, which should not even be left within children’s reach. Furthermore, kids are susceptible to eating things. Borax is harmful to the skin and surely not edible. Using toxin-free and edible ingredients is one way to mitigate the risks. But, you should let your kids make and play with slime under your supervision.

Carefully Follow the Instructions for the Recipe

Source wired.com I Making slime based on instruction

Slime-making is a process of a chemical reaction. Always follow the instructions carefully about the ingredients of the recipe and their proportion. Also, the slime might not come out as the way you want it to be if you don’t follow the right instructions. Furthermore, only buy ingredients from trusted sources. Don’t go by everything you see on the internet and rely only on the sites and videos that are credible.

Never Substitute Any Ingredients without Knowledge

Source pinterest.com.mx I Slime ingredients

You might be tempted to substitute a product that you don’t have at your home with something that you have in plenty. Never do this. As mentioned earlier, the chemical reaction might go wrong, potentially leading to skin irritation and other dangerous consequences. Rather, wait until you have the right ingredients as specified to make slime.

Wash Hands Thoroughly after Use

Source thejakartapost.com I Washing hands after making slime

Whatever the ingredients used, you should make it a priority to wash the hands of both yourself and the kids after preparing and playing with slime. Also, don’t let your kids play with slime for too long. Clean the surrounding place, the bowls and utensils used for preparation thoroughly. Remind your kids not to eat them from time to time. And, lastly, store the slime away from the reach of the children.

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So Let the Fun Begin

First, wash your hands and rub on some hand lotion. When playing with slime keep hands away from eyes, face, and mouth. Slime will stick to dirty, warm or dry hands. We recommend playing with slime on or over a clean kitchen countertop or on atray. It's important to handle slime quickly so it doesn't stick to your hands! Open the lid of your slime, leave your slime in the jar and push your fingers into the slime to see how sticky it feels. If it feels sticky use the Borax Activator Solution.