How to Make Slime

Two Ingredient Slime - Recipe for Play

One of the easiest yet most cherished recipes for play we've made is homemade silly putty. We use a simple, two ingredient recipe.  My older boys have played with that batch for two months. Little by little it has gotten smaller, so I decided it was time to make a new batch. Since we enjoyed playing with the silly putty on the light box, I decided to try making translucent silly putty this time.  The results were perfect, better than I anticipated.  More than a putty, using clear glue made this slime!  Here are the directions for how to make slime:

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Supplies:

• liquid starch
• clear school glue
• liquid watercolors or food coloring (optional)

Directions:  Mix equal amounts of clear glue and liquid starch and mix well.  Yep, it's that simple.

The clear glue was much gooier than the regular school glue we used to make silly putty.

Combining the glue and starch was very messy. I could have easily mixed them myself, but I like the added sensory experience for the kids.  The good news is that as messy as the mixture is initially, once the slime congeals it is easy to clean as it sticks to itself.

Lately my boys are obsessed with Spiderman. J-Bug (3) insists that we call him Spiderman and will only answer when we remember to do so. They both said the slimey goo reminded them off the webs Spiderman shoots to hang from buildings.

In order to achieve the desired consistency you really need to work the mixture for a long time. I can't emphasize that enough. It took a good twenty minutes of all three of us working the goo in our hands before it started feeling more solid.  If it doesn't feel right at first, keep mixing.  JZ (5) asked if we could make it colorful, so we grabbed the liquid watercolors and added some orange. Food coloring will also work well.

Troubleshooting:  After working the mixture between your hands for a long time, if it feels too sticky, add more starch. If it feels too rubbery, add more glue.  I find it works best to squeeze out the desired amount of glue first, then slowly add liquid starch until it feels how you want it.  Last time I used a 2:1 ration, with less starch than glue.  This time I felt the amounts were fairly even.  The clear glue is much stickier than school glue.

Once the slime has been mixed well it can be stored in an air tight container for many months.  We have never had our slime go bad.  After use hands wash clean easily with soap and warm water.

For more ideas on how to make slime follow my Recipes for Play board on Pinterest.

There's our simple recipe for how to make slime.  Click the images below for more recipes for play: