sensory play

Holiday Scented Christmas Tree Slime

When we made our original stretchy Christmas Tree Slime, the kids enjoyed it, but were wishing they could have slime that actually looked like a Christmas Tree and count be “decorated”. This holiday scented Christmas tree slime is just what they were looking for! This holiday scented Christmas tree slime allows kids to use their imaginations as they “decorate” the tree. It also provides tactile, visual, olfactory (scent), and proprioceptive sensory feedback.

Holiday Scented Christmas Tree Slime Recipe:

5 oz. clear glue
1/2 cup water
green candy colour (you can also use food colouring or paint if you prefer)
pine essential oil
green glitter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp contact solution
pom poms

Instructions:

In a bowl, pour 5 oz. of clear glue.
Add 1/2 cup of water. Mix until the glue has broken up and is incorporated into the water. I use warm water for this so that it mixes more easily.
Add a few drops of green candy color, mixing until you get the perfect Christmas tree colour.
Add a drop or two of pine essential oil.
Sprinkle in your glitter. I used a mix of chunky and fine glitter. Stir everything together.
Mix in 1/2 tsp. baking soda. The baking soda will help determine your slime’s thickness.
Mix in 1 Tbsp of contact solution. Be sure that your contact solution contains boric acid. Contact solution determines the stickiness of the slime. The slime will be ready to knead when it pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Knead the slime. At first, it will be sticky. Just keep kneading it! If you have to, you can add a little bit more contact solution, but be careful not to over-activate it by adding too much.
Add some multi-colour pompoms as the “ornaments” on the tree.
Be sure to store the slime in an airtight container.

During the holidays, it can be even more important to have sensory play activities around. When kids aren’t doing their regular routine, they can have a harder time self-regulating. Ensuring that they are receiving plenty of sensory input, particularly the type that provides proprioceptive feedback can help them to regulate.

With kids not only being out of routine, but also not receiving as much natural sensory input at school or out in the community, you will need to provide many opportunities for them. Holiday themed sensory play is an easy way to do that.

Here are some other holiday sensory play ideas:

Melted Snowman Sensory Bottle

O Holy Night Sensory Bin

Simple Christmas Sensory Bag

Stretchy Christmas Tree Slime

Christmas Gifts Sensory Bin

Peppermint Scented Christmas Playdough

Stretchy Christmas Tree Holiday Slime

By Sharla Kostelyk Leave a Comment

It’s always the time of year for slime. Christmastime is no exception. That’s why we love this stretchy Christmas tree holiday slime. It’s fun and easy to make. Slime makes a great gift for your child to give their friends or for you to give your nieces and nephews. You can either give them the completed slime in an airtight container or print the recipe for them and gift them the supplies. Kids love things they can make themselves!

You can easily change out the Christmas trees for another type of festive confetti to create other versions of holiday slime. Consider using confetti shapes like candy canes, ornaments, snowflakes, reindeer, gingerbread, or stockings.

You can find some wonderful Christmas themed confetti at the dollar store.

Christmas Tree Holiday Slime Recipe:

1 cup of clear glue (I find that Elmer’s washable clear school glue works best)
2-3 Tbsp. contact lens saline solution*
1/2 tsp. baking soda
Christmas tree confetti
optional: other confetti such as red for added colour

*Be sure that you use a buffered contact lens saline solution.

Pour the glue into a large mixing bowl. Add the baking soda. Begin to add the contact lens solution a few drops at a time as you stir.

When you find that the mixture begins to pull away from the bowl, knead by hand. Add the confetti sprinkles in and fold them in. Continue kneading.Slime is made more by feel than by recipe. If you find that it is too sticky, add a few more drops of the saline solution. If it’s not sticky enough, you can add a drop or two more of the glue. Play around with it until you get the consistency you’re going for.

Some people prefer their slime to be a bit more sticky and others hate the sticky feeling. Understanding that everyone has different sensory preferences, feel free to adjust the recipe to your preference.

This holiday slime is stretchy. Part of the fun for kids is seeing how far it can stretch.

Why make holiday slime?

Making this Christmas tree slime is a perfect activity for that time in between the last day of school before the holidays and Christmas. Kids tend to be brimming with extra energy and excitement during that time.

Giving them good sensory play opportunities can help them regulate their emotions and remain more calm. The pulling and stretching and kneading of this slime gives them what’s called proprioception feedback. Proprioception is excellent for helping kids self-regulate.

While the kids think that they are just trying out a new slime recipe, you’ll be able to see the effects that the sensory play has on their mood and behaviour. The kids will be happy with their slime and their parents will be happy with more calm in the house. That’s what I can a win-win!

For more great sensory play recipes, check out Sensory Play Recipes. It’s full of fun ideas that are easy to make.

Looking for more holiday inspired slime? Check out some of our best:

Holiday Jingle Bell Slime

Peppermint Scented Slime

Kinetic Sand You Can Easily Make at Home

By Sharla Kostelyk Leave a Comment

Kinetic sand is such a neat sensory experience for kids. It is fun to play with, sparks creativity, and offers great sensory input. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but the kinetic sand in stores is expensive. Once your kids play in the sand for awhile (particularly if it’s in a classroom or day care and multiple children have their hands in it), it can get dirty. That means it needs to be thrown out. Which means you need to buy more. That’s why making your own kinetic sand is such a great option. You won’t believe how easy it is to make!

What is Kinetic Sand?

Kinetic sand is sand that has had ingredients added to it so that it becomes mouldable like clay. It continues to have the grainy properties of sand, creating an interesting texture experience.

It sticks to itself, much like wet sand at the beach. When you are on the shore making sand castles or sand sculptures, you need to add water to keep the structures from becoming too dry and crumbling. That is essentially the idea behind kinetic sand.

Kinetic Sand Recipe:

4 cups sand
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup vegetable oil

Mix the sand and flour together in a bowl.

Stir in the oil. Combine well.

It’s play time!

This recipe is included in our Sensory Play Recipes eBook. It includes more than 25 easy to make recipes for awesome sensory activity options.

If the sand begins to dry out after a few weeks, you can mix in a few drops more of vegetable oil and give it a good stir. This diy kinetic sand is wonderfully mouldable. It is a sensory play recipe is so simple and cost effective. You can buy enough sand to make many recipes for the same cost as one pack of store bought kinetic sand.

You can also purchase sand in cool colours. This allows you to make coloured kinetic sand.

I put the sand in a bin and added some small construction vehicles and a scoop. This created a sensory bin that encouraged imaginative play. Even my teens enjoyed playing with this one. They especially liked packing it into small cups and creating mounds and then pushing them over with the toy steamroller. You could also use this sand to create a beach themed sensory bin with seashells, small sand toys, glass beads, and rocks.

Or you could simply dump it in a tray and let your child’s imagination lead the way. They can stamp in this sensory play material with cookie cutters or stamps. Kids can experiment with creating shapes. They can add small toys to create a small world. There are so many options.

For therapists, kinetic sand is an interesting material to use in sand trays. The proprioceptive sensory feedback kids receive from squishing and squeezing the sand can create a calming effect. You can still have the child add toys and play out scenes.

Once you know how to make kinetic sand and realize how easy it is, you’ll never need to buy it again!

Check out some of our other sensory play recipes:

How to Colour Cloud Dough

Snow Playdough

Pumpkin Pie Scented Cloud Dough

By Sharla Kostelyk Leave a Comment

This pumpkin pie scented cloud dough is the perfect Fall sensory bin filler. Create a sensory experience that involves both the olfactory and tactile sensory systems.

To me, the smell of Fall is encapsulated in pumpkin pie spice. The scent reminds me of my grandma’s pumpkin muffins and takes me back to my childhood.

Pumpkin Pie Scented Cloud Dough Recipe:

4 cups flour
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup vegetable oil

In a bowl, mix the flour together with the pumpkin pie spice.
Pour in the vegetable oil.
Stir well and then knead by hand.

Since everything in this play recipe is edible, this cloud dough is taste safe. This makes it a good sensory play option to use with babies and toddlers. Of course, adult supervision should always be used.

Dump the scented cloud dough in a plastic bin. If you want, you can add some Fall themed items. I added silk fall leaves, leaf confetti, and a small scoop in our bin. If using this bin with babies, skip the addition of the leaves and confetti.

This recipe is included in our Sensory Play Recipes eBook. It includes more than 25 easy to make recipes for awesome sensory activity options.

This dough is soft and mouldable. It forms shapes in your hand but can still revert to its powered state. The addition of the pumpkin pie spice provides the scent and also a slight hint of brown in the dough, adding to the Fall feel of the experience.Cloud dough can be messy. Messy play is great for kids, but not always as fun for parents!

It works well to put an old sheet or tablecloth underneath the area you are playing in. You can also use a shower curtain purchased from the dollar store. This contains the mess. When the kids are done playing, you can gather up the corners and shake it outside.

You may be interested in some of our other sensory experiences:

Pumpkin Scented Puffy Paint

How to Colour Cloud Dough

Rainbow Soap Foam

How to Colour Cloud Dough

By Sharla Kostelyk 1 Comment

Cloud dough (sometimes called Moon Dough) is great for sensory play. Follow these simple instructions for how to colour cloud dough. Being able to make it in a variety of colours enables you to make it for specific themes or holidays. I love the silky soft feel of cloud dough. The texture is hard to beat. It is messy sensory play at its best. It is easy to make. Cloud dough uses common ingredients that are already in most people’s kitchens.

Playing with cloud dough is fun for kids as they explore the feel of it. It is powdery, but it is also moldable. This creates endless possibilities for play. My favourite recipe is one that uses baby oil, but I wanted this recipe to be taste safe for it to be baby safe, so I have used an edible oil in this one instead.

How to Colour Cloud Dough:

2 cups flour
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tsp. candy colour*

* It is important that you use candy colour in this recipe and not food colouring. Food colouring won’t mix with the oil, but oil based candy colour will.

Pour the candy colour into the oil and stir well.
In a medium sized bowl, dump the 2 cups of flour.
Pour the coloured vegetable oil into the flour and stir.
Once it is well mixed, knead with your hands to continue to distribute the colour throughout the dough.

You can repeat the process as many times as you like to create different colours. This recipe is taste safe so it can be used with babies who have a tendency to put everything in their mouths as they explore the world around them. It won’t taste great, but it isn’t harmful.

As with all sensory play, adult supervision should be used at all times.
This recipe is included in our Sensory Play Recipes eBook. It includes more than 25 easy to make recipes for awesome sensory activity options.

Another way to colour cloud dough:

2 cups of flour
sidewalk chalk
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Grate or pound a piece of sidewalk chalk into powder.
Mix the chalk powder into the flour in a medium bowl.
Pour in the vegetable oil and mix.
Knead by hand to further combine.

Repeat the process with other colours of chalk to create more colour options.

This recipe is obviously not taste safe because of the chalk in it. It is best to use the other recipe with babies and little ones who may try to put it in their mouths. This cloud dough recipe is a good one to use with older kids though.

What about the mess?

Coloured cloud dough is messy no matter which recipe you use. It’s best to keep it away from carpet or couches that may stain.

I know that messy sensory play is something that can make parents squirm, but there are ways to keep the mess somewhat contained and still give your kids all the benefits of sensory play.

Place the cloud dough in a bin and take it outside if possible. In the cold of winter, you can place the bin on an old sheet or buy a shower curtain from the dollar store to put it on.

When play time is over, gather up the corners of the sheet or shower curtain and take it outside. Give it a shake. Just like that, any of the dough not in the bin won’t be on your floor!

Check out some of our other sensory play recipes:

Rainbow Soap Foam Condensed Milk Paint

Glow in the Dark Slime with Glitter

By Sharla Kostelyk Leave a Comment

Glow in the dark slime is easier to make than you may think. This particular slime doesn’t even need a black light to glow. Adult supervision should always be used when making slime.

Glow in the Dark Slime Recipe:

6 oz. Elmer’s washable clear school glue
10 drops vetiver essential oil
1 Tbsp. baking soda
2 tsp. glow in the dark paint or gel
1 Tbsp. glow in the dark powder
1-3 Tbsp. contact solution (be sure that the contact solution you use includes both boric acid and sodium borate in the ingredient list or it won’t work)
2-3 Tbsp. of neon glitter Instructions:

Add the glue and essential oil to a small glass bowl and stir.
Add the glow in the dark paint or gel, the glow in the dark powder, and the baking soda.
Mix everything together.
Add 1 Tablespoon of contact solution to the bowl. Mix well.
You know that the slime mixture is ready to come out of the bowl when it pulls away from the edges of the bowl. You may need to add another Tablespoon or two to the mixture for it to come away completely.
Remove the slime from the bowl* and knead it on a flat surface until it’s nice and smooth.
Add the glitter and continue to knead until it is incorporated into the slime.

To make the slime glow, hold it under a light or take it into the sunlight for about 30 seconds. Then, bring it into a completely dark room and it will glow! Store the glow in the dark slime in an airtight container or plastic bag. If stored properly, this slime will keep for a long time.

*Pro slime making tip: Squeeze a drop of the saline solution onto your finger and rub gently onto both hands before handling the slime. This will prevent the slime from sticking to you.

This slime would be cool to make for Halloween or for a sleepover party. The kids could enjoy its glow after dark. If you want to give it out as party favours, you can use baby food jars as containers wrapped with purple ribbon around the top.

Check out some of our other awesome slime recipes:

Creepy Spider Web Slime

Peppermint Ribbon Scented Slime

Rainbow Confetti Party Slime