Sticky, Ooey, Bumpy, Edible, Fun, Homemade, Infant and Toddler Safe Slime!

 Our program experienced quite a bit of turnover this past fall as many of the children who had been with us for a number of years outgrew us!  So, we have been quite busy with a wonderful group of infants, toddlers, and young preschoolers. When you work with a younger crowd- your mindset changes to make sure that the activities are not only developmentally appropriate, but also safe. We need to worry more about mouthing, tasting, and eating than we have had to in a very long time.

I have been inspired quite a bit by the creativity and ingenuity of Asia Citro over at Fun at Home with Kids. She has some great ideas for safe edible water beads, and a fantastic slime! As I was reading her post about water beads, I thought about some of the slimes we have made (like the Kool-Aid slime) and I thought- "hmmmnnn Tapioca, tapioca is a starch, corn starch is a starch... I wonder if boiling tapioca pearls will create a fun bumpy slime?"..... so of course, I had to experiment! Look at what happened:

Sticky, Ooey, Bumply, Edible, Fun, Homemade, Infant and Toddler Safe Slime!!!!

Here is what I used (affiliate link):

After a bit of experimentation, I found that if you boil

6 cups of water and

1/3 c tapioca pearls

for 30 minutes...

you get an AMAZING slime!

The mixtures starts off milky and thin. As it boils, it thickens and becomes more translucent. You and keep the slime colorless or you can add a few drops of food coloring to the mix. The slime stays slimy as long as you store it in the refrigerator when you are not using it. (It thickens a bit more as it cools - kind of like gravy does....)

If you opt to leave the slime out, it will not last as slime, but end up as a watery liquid with tapioca pearls floating in it! (This is also fun to play with, but definitely NOT slime!)

We have made a couple of batches of this slime and tapioca pearls, and then.... after playing with some of the pearls... I had another thought.... I wonder what happens when.........

you add cornstarch to the watery pearls....

would you get a slime kind of like the safe slime on Fun at Home with the Kids?

or would it be different? Well, of course we had to try it!

The slime we created was very different from that we made following the recipe from Fun at Home with Kids. It was VERY sticky, and much like regular oobleck it gets really hard when it settles!

Have you ever experimented with recipes? I'd love to hear about it!