Making and Playing With Slime

I cannot believe we never tried this until now.....so worth the wait though. Find out how we created this slimey Fun. The pictures speak for themselves.

To create stretchy and oozing slime all you need is:

Slime

(2 Recipes for Slime found here in my last post)

a strainer, colander, sieve, or anything with holes in it (we used a tennis racket!)

Basically all you do to create this AWESOME experiment is to place the slime on top of the item with holes and let it slowly ooze out.  You could hang a strainer up high or we placed a tennis racket on top of two kid stools on either side. Then let the slime do its trick.  I walked away for a minute or two and my daughter came yelling, "Come quick.....NOW!" This was ultimate excitement!

Looks like a brain.

SO Slimy and FUN.....

Hope you try this....do not wait as long as we did!

Making Two Kinds of Slime

As I said in my last post, we've been reminiscing about old projects, experiments, and recipes in my blog books from Blog2print. This time my daughter wanted to make slime again after seeing the post here.  Not only did we make that kind of slime, but we also made a different kind of slime too. Keep reading to find out the 2 types of slime we made.

Recipe #1 Slime:

Mix in one bowl:
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup white glue
few drops of food coloring

Mix in a second bowl:
1 1/3 cups warm water
4 teaspoons Borax
(Borax is found in the laundry section.  ****Borax should not be ingested and can cause skin reactions with some... so use your discretion!)

Pour contents of first bowl into second bowl and let sit for one minute without stirring. Then explore Slime #1!


Recipe #2 Slime:
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup white glue
1/4 cup liquid starch
few drops of food coloring

Pour all glue in mixing bowl and then add water.  Stir water and glue together.  Add food color.  Then lastly add starch. Then have fun with Slime #2.


Making the two kinds of Slime was fun in itself and this time my daughter could actually read the recipe, so making it a great reading activity and science experiment too.

We compared and contrasted the two kinds of Slime as we were playing with them:  Slime #1 was
more rubbery and Slime #2 was smoother and more squooshy.

Then very soon after, both slimes were mixed together....which ended all comparisons. (But it did prove that yellow-green and blue make green!)  Plastic bugs made a great companion for the slime play.

C covered the bugs with slime, tore it into tiny pieces, stretched it, and pressed bugs into it to make impressions. Slime makes for such creative and FUN play with endless possibilities.

Hope you are inspired to try out both recipes for Slime. 

 Do you know any other recipes for Slime?

Autumn Treasures Shadow Box

We were inspired by Teach Preschool's Post: Our Nature shadowboxes in preschool to make our Autumn Treasures Shadow Box.  It was so easy to make and it was a neat way to collect natural items..... which all kids love.  Keep reading to find out how to make one!

To make an Autumn Shadow Box you'll need:

a shoe box lid

white glue

natural items

glitter for fun

yarn for hanging

First,  put about a half inch or so of glue (or a little less)  in the lid of a shoe box lid.  Next,  place your natural items in the glue and then sprinkle with a touch of glitter.  Then let dry flat for a day or two.

After about two days this is  the result.  I think it is beautiful....  The glue seals the leaves and other natural items into the box frame and it dries clear.

We added a string/yarn and it was ready to hang!  Such a fun, simple and lovely project.   Hope you enjoy! What a splendid Autumn decoration or for anytime.

Glue and Watercolor Painting Experiment

Lately we've been experimenting a little bit with glue, water, and watercolors.  I think whenever you introduce a new element to an art process it always makes it more fascinating and it definitely made it more intriguing for my daughter... who lately would rather be playing outside or doing her own thing.  One of my readers,  Amelia, told me she was going to try adding glue to our Colorful Mud Paintings mixture and I'm wanting to try that myself too.  Keep reading to find out the results of our experiment with glue and watercolors.

All you need for this process is:

white Glue

water

brushes

watercolors 

thicker paper (scrap book paper, tagboard)

To begin, first make a mixture of one part water and one part white glue.

Brush it all over your paper like this 

Then begin painting with water colors over the glue.

My daughter really liked this process.  It gave the watercolor paint texture and the paintings a different look...kind of  a speckled look.  Here is a rainbow by C.

People.

Flowers by Mom.

Flowers by C.

Experimentation and free form art.

This isn't the first time we've experimented with glue: we've painted with salt, glue, and watercolors here and check out our post on Four Ways to Use Glue (besides pasting) here.

What new elements have you added to art processes with children? 

Four Ways to Use Glue (besides pasting!)

I've noticed I have quite a few posts using glue for other reasons besides sticking thing things together... so I decided to create a collection of all my post that relate.  If you or your children are a lover of using glue the non-traditional way... then this post is for you!!! Click on the picture or Title to bring you to that post.

Glorious Glue Batik

Glue Prints

Salty Watercolor Painting

Glue Spider Webs


What are some other non-traditional ways that you have used glue...???please share.
(we would love to try those ideas too!)

Colorful Bumpy Glue Spider Webs!

Another Spider Web Project!!!  These turned out really COOL!!! We made Spider Webs with glue and then colored inside the spaces to create some really AMAZING works of art!!!  Here is Cassie's finished work:

To create an amazing Spider Web with glue, you may first want to practice drawing Spider Webs like we did in this post: Drawing Spider Webs.  Since we've made spider webs before, we started with glue on black paper. Start with a small circle in the middle of the paper and creating larger circles with each successive one.  These are concentric circles.

As you can see,  C had about 5 circles already!  You can do as many circles as you want!!!

Then create lines from the center circle branching out to finish the drawing part of the spider web.  After you finish this part, let the glue dry  on a flat surface over night!

The glue will dry to the color of the paper (black in this case) and it will have COOL bumpy texture!

To make the spider web stand out and make it colorful we used Crayola Oil Pastels.  We colored in between the spaces.  You could also use colored chalk or chalk pastels too!  Basically you can use anything that would show up on black paper!

I was pleasantly surprised how much C enjoyed coloring her spider web in with oil pastels!  She did a Wonderful job!  Oil pastels are FUN to color with because of their soft and creamy texture!   Maybe that is why she did such a Fabulous job?

After she finished the color,  spiders were added with black oil pastel! What a Fabulous Halloween or any time decoration!

What Do You Think?

***Be sure to check out our How To Draw a Spider Web post and Halloween Greeting Cards post for some other great Spider Web projects!

***Also, at the end of our How To Draw A Spider Web post I have lots of great links to Spider facts,  Spider Web facts, and Spider Books!!!

This post is shared with: Craft Schooling Sunday, No Time For Flashcards, It's Playtime

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Salty Watercolor Painting

This was a guest post over at Moms by heart and I just wanted to repost it for those who didn't get a chance to see it! Cassie loved this Salty Watercolor Painting when she was a young 3 year old and still loves it each time we revisit this process! All you need for this activity is salt, white glue, watercolors, brush, and stiff cardboard or matte board. (a piece of cereal box would work too!)

First, draw an image with glue on cardboard. We used a scrap of matte board. Cassie chose to draw a person and my image was more Abstract.

Next, sprinkle salt over the wet glue drawing and coat all of the glue.  It helped to use a spoon to cover the whole drawing.

After the drawing is covered in salt,  gently shake off the salt or tap the edge of the cardboard on your table covered with newspaper.  It will look like a sparkly "raised" drawing at first!  ***Note: The glue does not need to be dry!  The next step can be done immediately!

The fun part comes next,  take a paintbrush dipped in water and mix it into one section of watercolor paint and gently touch the tip of the brush to any part of the salty drawing.  The watercolors slowly seep into the salt drawing.  SO COOL to watch this magic happen!

Keep adding different colors and wash brush between colors.  Lovely!

Here is Mom's more Abstract Salty Watercolor Painting on black matte board.

We definitely both had FUN!

Be sure to check out my post on Glue Printing here.

This post is linked to:

The Sunday Showcase
It's Playtime