Butter slime is fascinating. It’s soft, slightly wet feeling, yet leaves your hands dry, and very much like play dough, but so much better smelling!
We love making our own butter slime at home with just a couple ingredients.
It makes a perfect sensory play activity because it stimulates the sense of touch, sight, and smell!
I get that you need to keep your kids busy because you feel stressed about all the stuff you need to get done today. That’s why my mission is to…
1. Find fun, quality kids’ activities and show you step by step how to do them.
2. Save you time and energy by using supplies from around the house or show you where to easily get them.
3. Inspire you to be creative and play with your kids in new and exciting ways.
Why We TRY TO Do A Sensory Play Activity Every Day
Sensory play is any activity that stimulates the five senses.
Playing with slime, doing experiments with baking soda and vinegar, and exploring sensory bins are a few sensory activities we do several times a week.
In the early years, kids interact with and learn about their world using their senses. They’ll conduct mini science experiments trying to use their senses to discover more about an object or cause and effect. They’ll do things over and over until they’re satisfied that they can predict the outcome.
Babies drop things from their high chair over and over to see if they fall to the floor every time. Babies put everything in their mouth to see what it tastes like.
Toddlers will touch everything (mine also sniffs everything…) and ask millions of questions.
According to research, sensory play has many benefits.
- calms agitated or bored children
- supports language development
- aids in developing essential fine motor skills
- helps children categorize by learning sensory attributes (hard, soft, sour, sweet)
Children use sensory play to explore, examine, and discover their world. We try to do a sensory-focused activity like one of these each day to help our kids learn about the amazing world we live in!
ABC butter slime is a great sensory play activity! I love the contrast of textures between the pale slime and the colorful magnets.
Plus our butter slime smells incredible and comes together so fast with just two main ingredients!
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!
How We Did It: ABC Butter Slime
The first thing we did was make butter slime.
I let Elena dump a cup of cornstarch in a bowl. Then we added half a cup of hair conditioner under the watchful eyes of Mr. Chameleon.
This butter slime comes together quickly with just a little stirring. Find out more in our original butter slime post.
Next, Elena had to get her hands in it and poke it.
Butter slime has a really cool texture. It’s puffy and soft as butter. It kind of feels wet, but your hands aren’t slimy at all.
It can dry out pretty quickly though, especially if you use lotion instead of hair conditioner. When it does start to dry out, it can get extra messy.
Before we started stamping, Elena did some rolling to make a nice smooth surface.
Then she used the magnet letters to make alphabet prints.
(Alphabet stamps, alphabet puzzle pieces, and alphabet buttons would all work instead of the magnets.)
I named the letters for her to stamp with: “Can you use the letter B?”
Sometimes I had to give color clues: “Can you use the orange letter B?”
She wasn’t in the right mood for this today, but I’ve been wanting to try spelling some words for her. This would have been the perfect activity for that!
Instead, we stuck to naming the letters s and describing how the slime felt in her hands.
Adding Texture to Butter Slime
My daughter loves playing with slime and play dough of any kind, but I wanted to switch things up a bit to keep the activity fresh.
I’m glad I did because she ended up playing with this new slime for a solid HOUR!
It got messy, but it was so worth it!
Here’s what we did.
We used the exact same butter slime recipe, but added a half cup of colored play sand.
Adding coarse sand to a silky smooth butter slime is a great play on different textures.
The new sandy butter slime felt gritty, but was still smooth and soft when rolled out.
Elena and I talked about how the slime felt again after we’d added the sand.
“Hard! No, not hard. The sand is hard. The slime is soft.”
My daughter rolled the new slime into little balls and made a snowman. I helped her add toothpicks to make arms.
She also stuck the letters in a big ball of slime. I thought it looked pretty cool.
We definitely needed to clean the magnet letters when the sensory play activity was over. But it was super easy. Warm water gets the slime right off!
Your Turn! Make Sandy ABC Butter Slime
Sandy Butter Slime
Supplies
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 1/2 cup hair conditioner (or lotion)
- 1/2 cup play sand (optional)
Instructions
- Mix the cornstarch and hair conditioner together to form a soft dough. If it is too dry, add a tablespoon more conditioner. If it is too sticky, add a tablespoon of cornstarch.
- Make sandy butter slime by adding the play sand to the mixture. Knead the sand in until it all comes together.
- Play with the butter slime using rolling pins, play dough stamps, alphabet magnets, alphabet puzzle pieces, or whatever you have on hand!
For younger kids, naming letters together and trying to get them to identify letters on their own will be challenging enough.
To challenge older kids, try having them spell words by sticking the letters into the butter slime.
Adapting Other Sensory Play Activities to Include Letter Recognition
Play dough is very similar to butter slime. If that is what you have on hand, use that with the letter magnets or alphabet puzzle pieces for stamping.
Cover letters in shaving cream and wash them. Fill a sink or bucket with water and add sponges for cleaning off the letters. Name the letters your child finds and washes.
Sensory bins are primed for adding letters. Hide them in a sensory bin and have your child dig or sift through the filler to find each letter. Then name the letters together.
In this post, I give suggestions for customizing your own sensory bin and provide tips on cutting back on the mess sensory bins are known for. Check it out here.
Add letters to an I-spy bottle. I-spy bottles are clear plastic bottles filled with a sensory bin filler, such as dried rice or beans, and interesting objects to find by shaking the bottle. Swap the miscellaneous objects for letters, and add a chart of letters for your kid to cross off as he finds each letter.
More Slime Activities
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!
