Here’s an easy UK slime recipe that takes just 2 minutes to make and is so much fun for sensory play and fine motor skills! Using easy to find ingredients that are safer than traditional alternatives, its perfect as a boredom buster for summer and for older kids to make independently.
Making and playing with slime is a huge fad with school aged kids at the moment and there are some creative child YouTubers now showing all sorts of amazing variations to this classic play idea!
I’m a HUGE fan of play-dough and write about our best ever, natural play dough recipe often, as well as developing loads of other sensory play recipes over the years too! But one sensory play recipe I had always been keen to try but never had the right ingredients for here in the UK was slime. I loved the idea of the super stretchy, elastic sensory play material but the only UK recipe I could find included a washing detergent as a key ingredient, but this is not something I’m keen to let my kids touch!
Recently there have been lots more variations that have been developed and Miss 5’s classroom assistant told me about a version she had made using contact lens solution! Yay, finally something we could use that’s easily accessible and much safer than neat borax or laundry detergent. If it can wash your lenses which go directly into your eyes, then a small quantity will be fine for the hands during play!
As with all sensory play, avoid contact with eyes and mouth and wash hands afterwards too.
We found out that it is easy to make it too sticky or too brittle, so we fiddled with the proportions until we got the PERFECT elasticity and texture!
I’ve called this a UK slime recipe for the simple reason that the ingredients are easy for us to find here in Europe, but of course it’s perfect to make *wherever* you live in the world! 🙂
Ingredients
PVA or clear glue (also known as school glue or Elmer’s brand)
Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda in the US)
Contact Lens Solution(there are various types of this so if you click the link to the one we used you will find it works perfectly! If you can’t choose this exact one, then make sure the one you buycontains boric acid (borax) in the ingredients list. It simply won’t work without this.)
Gel food colouring (Liquid food colouring alters the recipe and doesn’t work so well we’ve found.)
Glitter (optional)
Instructions for UK slime recipe
Tip 1 cup of the PVA glue into a clean bowl.
Then add 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda.)
Mix them together.
If you want to add colouring this is the best time to do it. Dip a matchstick or skewer into gel food colouring to pick up a blob, then mix it into the glue and bicarb mixture until it has fully integrated.
Next add 1 tablespoon of contact lens solution.
Mix with a spoon until it starts to become stringy, coming away from the edges of the bowl(almost like when you’re cooking eggs.)
At this stage take it out of the bowl and knead it between your hands. It will start off sticking to them but within about 20 seconds it will firm up and stick only to itself, becoming elastic and super stretchy.
[If for some reason it’s still too sticky then add just a few more drops of contact lens solution until it’s just right. Be careful as too much will result in it becoming brittle and snapping.]
You will have just created the most elastic, stretchy and wonderfully satisfying slime! Woo hooooo!
You could now add lots of glitter or sequins to make it even more amazing to play with, or go ahead and make a whole range of other colours and combine them together to make a rainbow extravaganza!
My kids absolutely LOVED this slime! They stretched it, squished it, skipped with it (yes it’s possible, ha!), and snipped it with scissors. This is a great sensory fine motor material and there are many ways to play and learn while using it.
We were so in love with this that we immediately made 5 more batches, all in under half an hour, in various colours and glitter combinations! Of course they all needed to have one each to play with and have got their won ideas for what we should create next too. I’ll share some of those on the blog in the next few days so check back and see what we made!
And here is the first of those- GALAXY SLIME! It’s out of this world (sorry, I had to do it!)
If you love SENSORY PLAY check out these archives for plenty of inspiration.
If you have a baby or toddler you may prefer our SENSORY PLAY IDEAS for BABIES here!
If you’re a huge fan of PLAY DOUGH see our dozens and dozens of scents, flavours and imaginative play ideas!
And if you loved this easy peasy UK slime recipe please consider sharing it with your friends and pinning it to Pinterest. Thanks!
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