Project: Silly Putty

I first heard about how to make your own silly putty from my boy's Chuck and Josh*.

Ingredients: 

2 tbs water

2 tbs white glue (like Elmer's)

Food coloring

1.5-2 tbs borax

Mix the first three ingredients together thoroughly.  Here, Robin wanted white silly putty so we didn't use the food coloring.  But really, one or two drops is enough.

Sprinkle the borax while stirring.  It's a mild irritant, so I did this carefully while the girls stirred slowly.  

It's like magic - you can see the polymerization as soon as the granules touch the liquid.

When it looks like it's almost completely together, knead for a few minutes.  I did this part as I wanted the grains to mix in as much as possible. 

NOTE OF CAUTION: DO NOT get this on fabric or hair.  Or a disposable pull-up.  Also, it's totally not edible so if your kids are kind of orally interested, maybe try a good playdough recipe. 

Then, have fun! The girls played with it for about 1.5 hours.  The silly putty became everything - ropes, necklaces, snakes, even flashlights, dogs, you name it.  They let it ooze on the glass table and poked into it to make faces.  It was really cool to see them so engaged. 

* Seriously, if you aren't already listening to these guys, go to iTunes or whatever you use, and subscribe, free, to Stuff You Should Know. You'll thank me.  Or maybe not when you spend the next week on a binge, getting caught up over the last 450 podcasts.