Alphabet Slime – Match Upper & Lowercase Letters

I am part of Elmer’s Crafty Teachers Crew and they asked me to create a fun learning activity with some of their products and share them with you. I knew exactly what I wanted to do…. make some alphabet slime!  Sensory materials like slime are fun all by themselves but adding a few items can turn a completely sensory experience into a sensorial literacy one. My daughter has known her letters for quite some time but still confuses lowercase b and d from time to time. This activity is a great way to work on upper and lowercase letter identification as well as fine motor development as your child or students dig through the slime for the small beads. My preferred way to use this activity is to set it all up and let the child explore, let them match up the letters or just PLAY. They will benefit from both options.

Gather your materials. You will need some Elmer’s clear school glue, Elmer’s glitter glue, glitter, liquid starch, alphabet beads, two ice cube trays, a marker, some bowls, and a spatula.

Before you mix up the slime write the lowercase letters in the ice cube tray with a permanent marker.

Here is the recipe I used – our slime was not very sticky and pretty thick. I kneaded it a lot! I like it strong and thick so little bits don’t go flying.

1 bottle of Elmer’s Clear School Glue
1/2 bottle of Elmer’s Glitter Glue
1 squeeze ( about a tablespoon) of Elmer’s School Glue
Glitter – We used the glitter from Elmer’s Craft Bond Glitter & Glue. One full tube for each color.
1/4 cup of liquid starch

I mixed the first four ingredients then added the starch and kneaded by hand. It got messy at times but,  it was quick to make.

I made four colors, but my little assistant wanted to mix them together. The photos would have been SO much prettier if we didn’t but let’s all keep a good perspective on these activities. They aren’t for us or even Pinterest they are for our little ones SO MIX THE COLORS even if they end up brown or in our case a gun metal gray.

Add the alphabet beads and mix.

Set out the trays and the slime for your little letter finder.

Dig in!

She spent about half the time digging for letters and putting them in the correct sections and the other half just playing and exploring the slime. 

We sat together both digging in and picking out letters. As well as giggling at the not so proper noises that the slime made as she pushed into it.

After a while we went looking for letters that we hadn’t found yet, she noticed which letters had the most beads in their sections and which were empty.

Then she played some more!

Using some novelty to reinforce or even introduce basic concepts makes them mush more fun. Using sensory materials like slime can offer children that need to squish and grab and squeeze an outlet to do that while still reaching more specific goals.

Tomorrow I will share another simple idea we created with this slime after we got all the alphabet beads out – I will be taking it to my preschool class to explore with my students. Don’t miss it!

As stated above this post is part of a sponsored program with Elmer’s Glue.