We love playing with slime, it’s just so much fun. Normally we just make up a tubful, using about half a kilo of cornflour plus water and food colouring. This time we used our blow-up drinks cooler (which looks like a small paddle pool), and we added about seven kilos of cornflour, plus water. If I’d had any more cornflour I would have used it!

This was definitely an outside activity. All the kids put on their swimmers (and sunscreen), and then we got to it. L and A helped me put all of the cornflour into the drinks cooler, and then I added some water and the kids mixed it all up.

Predictably, the kids all got into the drinks cooler and sat, jumped and squished through the slime. At one point all four of them were in the cooler at the same time! They covered themselves and each other in slime, they mashed it between their fingers, and they “swam” in it. They love that the slime is both a liquid and a solid, pulling globs of it up into the air and then letting it drop and stream back down through their fingers. It was so thick in its solid state that the boys could actually stand on it and it supported them!

This was a great way to spend a hot afternoon. We all had a lot of fun. At the end, everyone was hosed off in the yard, and then went inside to bathe. The slime comes off the skin quite easily in the water, but they all needed to wash it thoroughly out of their hair!

This is the easiest way to make slime, and requires only cornflour and water. I usually add some food colouring to the mix too, for a bit of extra fun. Green is our favourite slime colour. I once made it red, and it stained everything it touched, including our skin, so no more red slime for us!

I used a kilogram of cornflour in each tub, and roughly the equivalent in water. I normally just add water while mixing until I get to a consistency that I like. Less water makes it firmer, more water makes it runnier. I tend to lean towards firmer to start, as inevitably, the kids want to add water to the mix at some point while playing with it. The food colouring can be added to the water as you mix it in, or to the already mixed slime (it’s easier to do it while mixing in the water).

Past experience told me to get the kids into swimmers and take this activity outside. It is very messy. Afterwards I can hose the kids down, hose out the tubs and hose the mess from the grass too. Luckily it was really hot so we enjoyed playing with the hose once we were finished with the slime.

 

Previously we have used various plastic animals, cups, scoops, spoons, tongs and funnels with the slime, but the kids have just as much fun without any extra play items. It is a fascinating substance that keeps the kids entertained for ages. It is lots of fun to scoop up in our hands, squish it between our fingers, and let it ooze back into the tub. We talked about its liquid and solid properties and looked at ways of changing the pressure on the slime to cause it to solidify or to liquify. The kids tried pressing it quickly or letting their hands slide into it. And of course, eventually one of them stood in it, and then sat in it. Baby T was particularly pleased with the way it squelched up between his toes.