Sensory play take 2- Fun with homemade gak

After the shaving cream fail, I wasn't sure how homemade gak would go, but I wanted to give it a try.  I had the boys help me make it and pick the color it would be.  They loved seeing it transform from a water mess into a blob when we added the borax.  Liam was very hesitant to touch it and gagged a little.  I gave him some play doh tools to use with it first and eventually he started holding it in his hands.  Usually when I try to do something crafty with the boys it last all of about 5 minutes, but this was a hit!  They played with it for a good 30 minutes- stretching it, rolling it, smelling it, sticking things in it.  Lots of good sensory input.  We will be doing this again.  It only took about 5 minutes to make.   Here's the recipe we used:

Ingredients

• 8 oz bottle of regular white glue (Elmer's or generic is fine, just make sure it's school glue, not tacky craft glue)
• 1 teaspoon Borax 
• ½ cup of water and
• 1 cup of water
• Food coloring

Instructions

1. Empty the entire bottle of white glue into a medium sized bowl.
2. Add food coloring (the more you add, the brighter it will be).
3. Fill the empty glue bottle with water. Shake it up to try to get some of the leftover glue out. Pour the water into the bowl.
4. Stir the mixture until it's smooth.
5. Add more food coloring and stir again if you want a brighter color.
6. Dissolve 1 teaspoon of Borax in ½ cup of warm water. If you have trouble getting it to dissolve, put the mixture in the microwave for 20 seconds at a time and stir until it's dissolved.
7. Stir the entire Borax mixture into the glue mixture. It will almost instantly get stringy and turn into slime!
8. Kneed the rest by hand until all the water is absorbed.
9. Store in a large freezer bag when you are done playing with it!