This activity uses an easy slime recipe for preschool and school age children to practice fine motor skills while searching for small trinkets in the slime. Children can practice using location words and fine motor skills, while exercising creativity while completing the task or playing a game of I-spy. This activity also encourages cooperation and following directions from another person.
Supplies:
1 cup clear washable school glue (like Elmer’s) OR regular white glue for a challenge
1 teaspoon baking soda
2-3 tablespoons saline solution
small figures or objects to put in slime
measuring spoons
mixing bowl
mixing spoon
airtight container for storage
Activity Steps:
Step 1: First, gather your supplies and prepare your workspace! Remember to have a clear space that might get messy, so set out a newspaper or a placemat.
Step 2: Next, create slime using this recipe (link). Remember, you can use clear glue to see the items better, or regular white glue if you want to look a little harder (that’s what I did!). You can color your slime if you want, but that will also increase the difficulty!
Step 3: Once your slime is made, add small trinkets into the slime. This works best if you push one item into the slime at a time, and knead it around so it becomes harder to see. This can be themed depending on what you have! For example, you can have a winter theme with mini snowmen, snowflakes, and mittens, or a sports theme with mini basketballs, soccer balls and footballs. Or, you can use a bunch of random things around the house, but remember to ask an adult first! I used yellow Legos of different size, dice, and blue circle chips.
Step 4: To play I-spy, have a partner say “I-spy something _____”. This can be a color, a size, or another descriptive word. For example, I could say, “I-spy a Lego with 4 dots!” Or “I-spy a dice with the number 3”. That way, I would have to search and twist the items using my fingers to find the correct answer!
You can make this a game, time yourself, have a race, or just look for fun! Have fun!