What is as hands-on as carving a jack-o-lantern, helps develop many of the same kindergarten readiness skills, is still lots of fun but with less clean-up? Playing with SLIME. Although slime is great any time of year, it takes on special meaning at Halloween. Slime is also known as Flubber and there are many recipes, usually with Borax. (That’s the one in this picture.) The recipe in this Youtube video has only 3 ingredients: white glue, water, and laundry starch. Color is optional. Younger ones that still put things in their mouth will need extra supervision.
Slime:
A. Put 1/4 cup of white glue in a bowl.
B. Stir in 1/4 cup of water.
C. Add any food color or leave white; it’s all fun.
D. Mix in 1/4 cup of liquid starch.
E. Play and enjoy. It shouldn’t stick to fingers. The more it’s played with the stretchier it gets.
F. Store in a bag in fridge.
As children play with Slime (with supervision) they:
- strengthen the small muscles in the fingers, hand and lower arm that are later used for writing and fine motor activities,
- practice making pictures in their mind or visualizing how something might turn out,
- use language to talk about what they are doing, ask questions, explain and more,
- process information received as they touch and work with their hands, such as shape, temperature, size, weight and texture,
- solve problems, organize, plan and
- exercise their imaginations.
This is only a handful of the brain connections and activities formed as children play and create. Slime is a cool alternative to playdough. Does your child have a favorite color for Slime?