Slime Baff, Gelli Baff and SnoBall Battle Packs from Zimpli Kids

Christmas stockings are such a fun part of Christmas. They represent the first taste of Christmas Day, as you awake to find your stocking filled with goodies at the end of your bed. Every year I try to find some cheap and cheerful, fun and interesting items to pop into the kids' stockings. Little bits and bobs that will bring a smile to their faces. Zimpli Kids do a range of products that make great stocking fillers that I know will be a hit with my son Freddy and my grandchildren.

The award winning Gelli Baff and Slime Baff ranges provide an opportunity for children to enjoy some sensory play as they experience and enjoy the different textures of the products. The powders are added to water to create lots of gooey, slimy fun. Perfect for bath time or for play time, the slimes can be used for imaginative games. At Halloween we put lots of plastic toys such as bugs, severed fingers, spiders, rats, body parts and skeletons into a cauldron of Gelli Slime and let the children explore. It was a great way to enjoy the product. I'm sure I can think of some festive uses for the products too. The kids love getting hands on and getting messy with the goo!

The SnoBall Battle Packs make a realistic looking snowy substance, so even if we don't get a white Christmas, we can still enjoy making and throwing snowballs. And as an added bonus, we won't get cold hands!

Zimpli Kids products are 100% safe for kids and unlike some ready-made slimes, contain no boron or boric acid. They are also fully biodegradable making them safe for the environment. Even the glitter used in the Glitter range is biodegradable. Gelli Baff comes with a dissolver to turn it back into a liquid for washing away, whereas the Gelli Slime dissolves straight into water for easy disposable.

With products starting at just £4.99, they are well priced and great value for money, providing lots of play value and fun for kids this Christmas.

Check out independent reviews of the products on YouTube - the products have over 6 billion views to date  - just search for Gelli Baff or Slime Baff.

More information can be found at: www.zimplikids.com.

Gelli Baff and Slime Baff Review

For a fun bath time, an exciting paddling pool activity or for some wonderfully tactile sensory play, kids will love Gelli Baff or Slime Baff. 

Gelli Baff turns water into a colourful, thick gelatinous goo for some gooey adventures. Slime Baff makes water into an oozy slime for some squishy, slimy play. Freddy received some to try out and had a great time in the garden playing with it. 

Gelli Baff and Slime Bath come as sachets of powder that dissolve into warm water. Once mixed into a bath, bowl or paddling pool, the water takes on the new gooey properties of the product. Gelli Baff has the texture similar to wallpaper paste whereas the Slime Baff is more like slime. There are a variety of colours to choose from. 

Gelli Baff  comes with a dissolver sachet to reverse the gel effect. Slime Baff can be thinned down using more water to dilute it. Both end up as coloured water that can be safely disposed of down the plug hole or into a drain.

You can let it run through your fingers, swish your hands around and experiment with the textures of the gooey solutions. Most kids love messy play, and the beauty of this is that it is a 'clean mess' that won't stain skin or clothing and can be easily washed away afterwards.

With a bit of imagination, children can pretend they are in a prehistoric swamp, under the ocean or in a land of slimy monsters. Freddy pretended the green Slime Baff was giant's snot! 

Although it is perfect for playing with in the bath, I love Gelli Baff and Slime Baff for playing with in the garden. It adds an extra dimension to water play during the warmer weather. Whether you are playing with a bucketful of goo or jumping into a paddling pool filled with coloured slime, it is a great way for children to play outdoors.

Both products are 100% safe on skin, non-staining, non-toxic and environmentally friendly. They can be drained away and disposed of safely and easily. They are manufactured in the UK.

Prices start at just £4.99 for a one use pack. 

Find out more at www.zimplikids.com/gelli-baff--slime-baff.

Making Messy Goo

Our favourite thing for some messy, sensory play is to make some messy goo!  Using cornflour, water and food colouring, this goo takes advantage of the strange properties of the mixture.  It isn't a liquid.  It isn't a solid.  The more you mix it, and handle it the stiffer it gets.  Let it run slowly through your fingers and it liquefies.  It is fascinating stuff and an ideal play idea if you want to get messy but are short on time and space.

To make it, simply take a cup of cornflour and add warm water slowly to reach the desired consistency.  Not too much though!  Add a couple of drops of natural food colour and you are ready to play.  It is really quick and easy to set up so little ones can be having fun fast!

• You can roll it into a ball in your hands.
• Let it drip through your fingers.
• Break it into pieces quickly.
• Hit it.
• Drop it from a spoon.
• Squeeze it slowly.
• Stir it fast or slow.
• Cut through it.

The mixture responds differently to quick and slow actions which gives so much scope to explore the properties  Kizzy was interested in the science behind what was happening.  She would lift up a lump of it as a solid and watch in amazement at it dripped through her hands.  I explained about it being a suspension of solid particles within a liquid.  Impact traps the water molecules inside the long starch chains forming a temporary semi-rigid structure.  It is a non-Newtonian liquid where force alters its viscosity.  It doesn't follow the usual rules!

Freddy was fascinated by the mixture, but also slightly afraid of it!!  He was a bit freaked out by how it would solidify on his hands.  He kept washing it off in the sink and enjoyed seeing it turn the water blue because of the food colouring.  He must have got messy and then washed it off twenty times making his own entertainment!!

The bits that fell on the floor could be vacuumed up easily as solids and the surfaces were easily wiped down with a damp sponge. Adding extra water to the bowl turned it into a free flowing liquid which could then be poured away. So tidying up afterwards was really easy.  It is an easily containable, small scale activity that still allows little ones to get messy and explore their world through play.

See More Ideas at Edspire

When Messy Play Meets Baking

As this Easter holiday is so very chilly, our activities are tending to take place more indoors that out.  There is  always a danger that this can end up in nothing more than TV viewing and video game playing, so I am determined to give Freddy some more structured activities to avoid an over-dependence on technology!

Today, Freddy had a fabulous time when he was set loose in the kitchen with 16 plain homemade sponge cakes (that we made together), three tubs of icing, sprinkles and some broken-up leftover Easter chocolate.  He had a totally multi-sensory experience as he sniffed, licked, tasted, touched, mixed and spread icing liberally!  He thought about the smells of the strawberry, chocolate and vanilla; the feel of the icing and the sprinkles between his fingers; the texture of the icing as he spread it and touched it; the shapes of the different sprinkles but mostly the flavours as he chomped on the chocolate and the Hundreds and Thousands!  He made a complete mess but loved every moment of his time.  He even enjoyed washing-up afterwards splashing in the warm, bubbly water and using different shaped vessels to pour water from one bowl to another.  There is so much for him to learn through playing and exploring his environment independently.

If you plan on embarking on some similarly messy play, I recommend using a tray to catch all the dropped sprinkles and smears of icing.  It was much easier tidying up afterwards with the mess contained.  The apron kept Freddy clean (ish!)  I often find it hard not to intervene and take control of activities that I do with Freddy and so it was really nice to take a back seat and simply let him do his thing.  I watched, listened and took photos of his antics and let him explore, completely unhindered by any grown-ups with our pre-conceived ideas on what constitutes fun!

What a lovely way to spend a day!

Thanks to Nick Jr for the chef's hat and silicon cupcake cases that they sent us so Freddy could be one of Dora's Little Cooks! Take a look at this recipe from Dora to bake up some delicious treats that are easy for little ones to help with.  You can find lots of other activities to keep the kids entertained this Easter holiday with Nick Jr online.