How to Make Slime at Home With Your Kids
While the slime craze has started to calm down, slime companies are still producing all kinds of products for kids who still love this squishy, stretchy toy. If you’d rather save some money and make your own slime, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn how to make slime at home with your kids.
Gather Your Supplies
When slime-making first became popular, people used supplies and chemicals that were uncommon, hard to find, and potentially dangerous. Now, we know you can make slime with simple and safe ingredients. We’ve compiled lists of necessary ingredients and optional ingredients so that you and your kids can make the exact slime you want.
Ingredient Lists
Necessary Ingredients:
- A medium to large bowl or container.
- At least one 8-ounce bottle of liquid glue with PVA. White or clear glue is best if you want to customize your slime.
- Contact saline solution. You’ll need 1 ½–2 tablespoons of saline solution for every 8 ounces of liquid glue, potentially more depending on desired stickiness.
- Baking soda. You’ll need 1 tablespoon for every 8 ounces of liquid glue.
Optional ingredients:
- A plastic or metal spoon for mixing. You can mix slime with your hands, but using a spoon is easier
- Baby oil. Most slime won’t be too sticky, but you can add small squirts of baby oil if it’s too sticky for your preference.
- Colorants. Use colored glue, food coloring, or pigment powder to customize the slime color.
Follow These Directions
Making slime with the ingredients we listed above is as simple as mixing them in a bowl together. Start by pouring in your glue and contact solution and mixing them until combined. Add your baking soda and mix it in with the glue-saline mixture until thoroughly combined. This is your basic slime, and if you want to, you can stop here.
Customizing Slime
If you want to customize your slime, you can add as many of the optional ingredients as desired. For colorants, you’ll probably need only a drop or two of food coloring or a pinch or two of pigment powder. There are several tips for choosing the best color for your project: pick a color scheme, know-how colors pair together if you’re using more than one, and understand color elements like hue, tint, tone, and shade.
Include Your Kids
A lot of parents do crafts for their kids and let their children enjoy the result. While your kids will enjoy the slime whether they make it or not, you’ll all have more fun by including them in the creation process. This is also a great opportunity to teach older children about measurements and help younger children develop their fine motor skills.
Involvement
There are different levels of involvement depending on your child’s age. Young children can pick out colors and other ingredients and hand them to you. If you help them, they may also be able to stir the slime mixture. Older children can help measure ingredients and can stir on their own.
Now you know how to make slime at home with your kids. Once you’ve gathered the right ingredients, followed the directions, and included your kids in the creation process, you’ll all have fun playing with this stretchy, squishy toy and be ready to make more.
Photo – Monstera
