Fluffy, Puffy SLIME!

Why is slime so much fun to play with!? I often make it for my daughter, but most of the time, even I find it hard to put down once I pick it up! Fluffy, puffy, soft and stretchy…it’s super fun to manipulate and great for keeping hands busy!

This time I decided to make a pretty pastel colored slime. I gathered up a few common household items and whipped together a spectacular batch of fluffy sensory goodness. It has such a great texture and fun to stretch, squeeze, poke roll and twist.

Many people try to make their own slime from a recipe, but end up getting discouraged and feel they’ve messed it up in the end. This may be because they did not mix it well enough or maybe added too much of a certain ingredient. It’s tricky to make slime from a recipe because it’s hard to measure certain ingredients such as glue, foaming hand soap and shaving cream in a measuring cup, but I have outlined a general “recipe” below to make a great slime concoction. Try your best to follow these portions and ingredients.

Also, keep in mind that if your slime isn’t coming out the way you anticipated, you always have the chance to “doctor” it up to fix it! If it’s too hard and chunky, try quickly running it under warm water and kneading it again.

Poke your slime! Use your fingers or even using a straw is fun too

Stretch your slime! Adding the hand lotion helps increase “stretchiness”

Materials needed:

• One (1)  4 oz. bottle of Elmer’s white glue
• 1/2 cup shaving cream
• 1/2 cup of foaming hand soap (any brand is fine…I used the Honest Co. soap)
• 1 tablespoon of baby powder
• Food coloring (you will need a few drops)
• Hand lotion (optional, but makes your slime much stretchier)
• 1 tsp. of Borax
• 1 cup hot water
• Spatula
• 1 large bowl for mixing
• 1 smaller bowel for the borax solution

Directions:

1. Start off by making your borax solution. Combine 1 tsp borax with 1 cup hot water and mix until the borax is thoroughly dissolved. Set aside for later.
2. Squeeze the entire bottle of glue into your large bowl. Add the shaving cream, foaming hand soap and mix until well blended.
3. Once your mixture has no lumps and is a thick and fluffy consistency, add in a heaping tablespoon of baby powder. You can leave the baby powder out of the recipe, but this will result in thinner slime that doesn’t hold it’s shape as well.
4. Mix well
5. Add a few pumps of hand lotion to your slime mixture (this helps the slime be stretchy)
6. Add in food coloring (about 4-5 drops) and mix well. We  made two different colored slimes and used red & yellow food coloring (separately, in 2 different bowls) to get both a nice yellow and pink pastel color. You can use any color you want!
7. Add your “slime activator” (borax + hot water). Add 3 teaspoons of the borax mixture to your slime and stir. Keep mixing and adding your borax mixture in intervals of 3 teaspoons. Be careful not to add too much or else your slime will harden and break apart too easily.
8. Mix well and knead.
9. Rub more hand lotion into it if you want a stretchier slime- don’t be afraid to be generous with the amount of lotion you use!

Have fun and enjoy! Playing with slime is a blast and something both you and your child will love. If your child has some tactile defensiveness or does not like to touch certain textures, this is a good recipe to use because it’s not a gooey, sticky slime. The texture and sensation to touch is more pleasant  because it’s soft and fluffy.

You can also experiment with this recipe by adding a tactile element to it- you can add beads, glitter or polystyrene balls to it to make for a more fun sensory experience. At the end of our slime playing, we added in some gold stars to turn it into a fine motor activity. I simply sprinkled some stars on top, mixed it in and then asked my daughter to try and “find” the stars to pick them out. Great for working on grasping skills and eye hand coordination!

If you want for a different sensory experience (or if your child has some tactile defensiveness or is hesitant about playing with the slime), you can put it in a zip lock baggie and let your child manipulate it from in there. For our sensory bag, we sealed it shut with thermal sensitive duct tape that changes color with touch from your hands. Pretty cool stuff! This tape is called Chameleon Skinz Color Changing Tape. It can be found  here on Amazon.

*If you leave your slime out, it will dry up quickly, so be sure to seal it in an air tight container. We used just a regular glass tupperware container.

NOTE: This recipe is not edible. Therefore, if your child is younger (and tends to put things in his/her mouth) or is oral sensory seeking, this may not be the best activity to do. As always, use caution and monitor your child when playing with this slime. You are solely responsible for determining if the activities and ideas presented on this website are suitable for your child. Please always provide appropriate supervision when implementing any ideas or activities from this website. The author and blog are not able to provide any assurance regarding allergies or other issues that may arise and are not liable for any loss, damage, injury or mishap that may occur from engaging in activities or ideas from this website. The ideas presented in this website are for informational purposes only and are never individualized therapy recommendations.

Author: Christina, OTR/L and Owner of Sensory TheraPLAY Box

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