Silly Putty Recipe - Make Your Own At Home!

momstown Oakville's February Little Scientist program had Oakville moms and kids making silly putty! Everyone really enjoyed playing, squishing, bouncing, stretching and shaping it once it was made. 

Silly Putty Recipe

Bowl #1

-1 cup of white Elmer's glue (the 225ml bottle)

-3/4 cup warm water. 

Mix well, then add some food colouring.  About 8-9 drops should do it. If you want darker colours, you could use more.

Bowl #2

-1/2 cup warm water

-2 teaspoons of Borax (Borax is a laundry powder booster, and it can be found at the grocery store in the cleaning products aisle) 

DIY - Silly Putty

Once both bowls are well mixed, carefully pour bowl #1 into bowl #2. This is where the fun begins! You can see the coloured glue mixture forming a ball in the water mixture. You can start mixing with a spoon, and then it's way more fun to use your hands for mixing. You need to really squish it and get all of the glue bubbles out. 

momstown Oakville moms and kids all had fun taking turns pouring and mixing all of the ingredients, and then rolling up their sleeves and getting hands right in the bowl. The mixture started off very watery, but the kids kept mixing and stretching and squeezing and squishing with their hands and worked the liquid into the putty and soon it was dry enough to take out of the bowl. The mixture was broken up into chunks and each child had a big blob to play with. 

The group made shapes, like green eggs and ham, or a big lollipop, or swing, or snake. We also made balls and and bounced them on the table. When the putty was left in a blob on the table, it started to lose its shape. It felt much more slippery and smooth and cool than playdough. Everyone went home with a bag of silly putty to continue to play with at home.

Interested in joining momstown Oakville for our mom and tot or mom and baby programs?  Click here!