Oobleck is such a fun and MESSY activity! So easy to put together only needing 2 ingredients, you are bound to have some messy fun! Why I say yes to mess…. Creating a space to be messy allows your child to have a full sensory experience, and explore their creativity. If Asher wants to smear it all over his belly, I say have at it! Also messy activities help teach your child that cleanup is a part of play. With the oobleck you’ll see I often put Asher in the bathtub. Easy cleanup, and after he’s done playing there is no running through the house before a bath. That being said I try to dump most of the mixture into the garbage and not down the drain. In small quantities I’m sure it is fine but I wouldn’t want to dump it all. I hope you enjoy these activities and give them a try!
Oobleck Ingredients
- Corn starch
- Water
- Food coloring (optional)
Simply combine the ingredients in a 2:1 ratio. So if you do 1 cup of corn starch, then add 1/2 a cup of water.
Science fact!!!
A quick little science fact about the oobleck! It is what is called a non-Newtonian liquid. Which means that it’s viscosity changes as it is put under “stress” So you will see when you play with it that as you run your hand through it you can scoop it up and create what seems to be a solid ball, then once it can rest, it will melt through your fingers as a liquid! If you had a big pool of it, you could literally run across the top. Pretty cool huh?!
The first one is pretty simple… just put it together and let your child go wild! Here I gave Asher a couple cups to play with, but he mostly flung it all over. Look how happy that little face is 😍
Animal Washing Station
For this activity I made a oobleck “mud” Using 1 cup corn starch, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, and 1/2 cup of water. I then used a few bath toys and coated them in the mud. I also got Asher some warm soapy water and a couple brushes for scrubbing. This is great sensory and fine motor skill work, but is also some good practice for grooming.
Oobleck Search and Find
For this activity I chose a deeper bowl so that it would more easily cover the things I put in the bowl. Asher loved using this slotted spoon to reveal the animals I hid in the oobleck. He really was looking for somewhere to put them once he’d found them, so I got him a little container with water to dump them into. He loved finding them, dumping them in the water, and then putting them back in to be found again. I mostly hid these little plastic animals, but I also put in some other random things like a blender bottle ball, an old binky, a spoon. You can use whatever you want, you just want it to be easily washable.
I hope you enjoy these messy fun activities! If you give them a try I’d love to hear about it! Please like, share, and play!
Turtlelion 