Making cornflour slime

Have some oozy fun with cornflour slime

Making slime is a great scientific activity to try at home with toddlers and pre-school children. Playing with the finished slime is a wonderful sensory experience.

You will need:

• a large bowl
• cornflour
• a jug of water
• food colouring (optional)

What to do

Add the food colouring to the water and stir. Put the cornflour into a bowl and add the water gradually, stirring midway through. The quantity of water should be half the quantity of cornflour. Watch your child explore how the slime changes from a solid to a liquid as they touch it.

Tip: If they punch the slime it will become solid, changing back into a liquid as they scoop it up in their hands.

Learning and development

This activity provides toddlers with an opportunity to explore how they can cause materials to change, as they see how they are able to change the slime from a liquid to a solid, and back again.

As they make slime, pre-school children can start to hypothesise and predict what may happen and recognise the changes in the ingredients as they develop into slime.

Making and playing with slime is also a fantastic opportunity to introduce some new words into your child’s vocabulary, such as dripping, slimy or oozing.