Slime monsters and robots

We made some pretty unappealing slime a couple of months ago, and my son refused to touch it other than to make 'monsters' with goggly eyes and lolly sticks. I thought it wasn't something we would be repeating again, but he actually asked to make some more. I couldn't face making the same goo again, so found another recipe, although our version ended up a little different because measuring the quantities was a bit tricky with thick liquids, foam and a 3 year old. However, what we made was a vast improvement on the last attempt.

We mixed the following using a lolly stick:

- approximately 120ml PVA glue

- a few drops of blue food colouring

- half a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda

- one tablespoon of contact lens solution (we used Specsavers)

Then we added and mixed in approximately 150ml shaving foam.

Mixing slime

I wrote about the science behind the reaction in my previous blog about slime, and it's the same here despite the additional foam, but the key point is that the contact lens solution needs to contain boric acid.

It started out very puffy and ran like a liquid, but after 10 minutes of being played with it turned into a more conventional slime which has some properties of a liquid and some of a solid. It gradually crept into a big puddle when a ball was placed on a flat surface.

Apparently this monster is me...!

The small boy wanted to make monsters again, so I gave him lolly sticks, matchsticks, goggly eyes and (don't do this!) feathers. The feathers get coated in the slime and are not reuseable - I wouldn't advise using them unless you want a mess! He spent about 10 minutes creating his 'monsters', and apparently one was meant to look like me. It's pretty unflattering but when I want him to stop whining I do pretend to be a whine-drinking monster and he usually stops (the reality is I prefer the odd glass of white or red...), so I guess I'm asking to be styled as a monster.

Making slime 'robots'

He ran out of enthusiasm for his monsters, partly because the feathers kept getting stuck and it wasn't easy to redesign them. I suddenly had an idea for a way to keep him interested and went and raided our DIY supplies. I found various relatively child-safe spanners, bolts, nails, large washers, curtain rail rings and Allen keys and challenged him to make a robot.

A finished slime monster.  I was given a detailed description of what each limb was for...!

This was a game-changer and he literally spent 45 mins making and redesigning 'robots' and talking to me/himself about how they could make and fix different things.

The slime became more solid-like over time

I don't really know why I hadn't thought of this before, but he was so into this activity that he wanted to do it again later in the day. This was a huge improvement on our last play with slime, and it stayed reuseable the next day, albeit a little harder. I suspect he's going to ask to do this again soon.