Slime can be fun but really messy…
When I found out my daughter received several small tubs of slime for her birthday from her friends at school, I wasn’t exactly thrilled.
Store bought slime can be super sticky, stinky and difficult to clean up.
But I get why kids, including my daughter, love it.
Playing with slime is a sensory activity that’s super fun. Sensory activities and sensory play helps kids develop their fine motor skills, learn about different textures and can be quite calming as well.
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The problem with most slime
The problem with store bought and even homemade slime is that it is often made with adhesives and many recipes online contain multiple bottles of glue that go to waste once playing with the slime is finished. And believe me when I say, slime doesn’t last long once your kid has played with it. It can easily get dirty with all sorts of things stuck in it.
A clean and simple slime recipe
But I found a recipe with only two simple ingredients that you most likely already have at home. It contains baking soda and dish soap. That’s it! And the cool thing about it is that it’s actually easy to clean up, doesn’t stain and you can use it for cleaning purposes after, so it doesn’t go to waste.
While the recipe contains an approximate amount of ingredients to use, I’ve adapted the recipe here to be more exact and created a slightly different version that is easy to follow.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup baking soda
- 1/2 cup dish soap
Instructions:
All you need to do is get a large bowl, add the baking soda and dish soap and mix it up with a spoon. It’ll have more of a sandy texture to it and won’t be as gooey as slime made with adhesives, but it’ll be just as fun for your kids to play with and less of a headache to clean up.
Note: You want to supervise them when playing with this and you want to make sure they are old enough to know not to eat it….you probably already knew that though.
Add more or less baking soda…
You can add more soap or baking soda based on the consistency you want to get as well. Also, this is a good recipe if you have a large jug of dish soap. We get our dish soap in a large bulk container from the grocery store, so it was easy to use a larger quantity of it. You might want to half the recipe and use a smaller bowl if you only have a limited amount.
Once your kids are done playing with it, you could use it for cleaning purposes afterwards, if you like. This is not a slime you can save though. It quickly dries up and is better for one-time use. But you could use the mixture for cleaning and add a bit of water to it if you don’t use it up in the same day. Baking soda and soap can help clean and scrub a variety of items and the amount of soap and baking soda you used for the activity won’t go to waste..
What are some slime recipes or sensory activities you’ve tried at home?