Oh the places you will go…..
making oobleck to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday today.
This stuff is amazing. My boys (okay and me too) were totally taken with this goo. Oobleck defies Newton’s third law of motion–for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you quickly smack oobleck with your hand it immediately turns into a solid, instead of splashing or moving. If you slowly move oobleck it reacts like a liquid. Needless to say our oobleck took a lot of fist smacking! Our kitchen was filled with lots of “Wow,” “Cool,” wide eyes of amazement and much laughter!”
To make your own mix 2 cups of cornstarch and 1 cup water in a bowl. If you want to color your oobleck like we did, add a few drops of food coloring to the water before adding to the cornstarch. It took some effort to mix the water and cornstarch. Try it out (hit it with your fist and pour it off a spoon to see if it works) before you give into the urge to add more water to make it easier to mix. When the kids weren’t playing with it I covered it with plastic wrap.
Too Cool! Really, you must give it a try!
We love that stuff at our house. The first time I made it, I added too much fod coloring, and our hands were blue for quite a while.
02 Mar 2007 at 10:56 am
That is so neat. Thanks!
02 Mar 2007 at 5:25 pm
ahhhhhh…
this has been a favorite at our house as well…
we once made a huge batch of it outside
in our sand and water table
and just let the kids go…
great fun…
04 Mar 2007 at 12:54 pm
no way!! I have an ancient childhood memory of seeing this on some kid’s science show. I was just telling my husband about it about 2 weeks ago - how there was this amzing liquid that was solid when you hit it!! I never knew what the stuff was made of (and never thought to look it up).
05 Mar 2007 at 10:55 am
Just being a nerd - the adjective to describe the way the cornstarch mix is behaving is “thixotropic”
Love the website by the way. I’m a knitter (in the UK), getting back into sewing, and have been looking at some fab ideas on blogs! I’ve bookmarked yours!!!!
11 Mar 2007 at 3:27 am
Excellent! This is neat-o. Thank you so much for putting this up. I am going to measure out 1/2 portions, with directions, and give them to my daughter’s pre-school class for St. Patrick’s Day. A cool alternative to candy!
13 Mar 2007 at 7:28 am
I love making this with kids! We add dinosaurs and other toys that don’t have moving parts and pretend that they are in a swamp or quick sand. You can put it in plastic shoe box or something with a little more room.
25 Mar 2007 at 2:39 pm
Thanks for the recipe. 3 drops of red food coloring is plenty to make the substance pink (my daughter’s FAVORITE color).
I had a blast with it!!!
30 Mar 2007 at 11:33 am
THIS WAS ONE OF THE CRAFTS MYMOM TAUGHT ME OVER 13 YRS AGO, ITS A SURE WAY TO INTEREST KIDS.
18 May 2007 at 9:16 pm
My daughter is having her first sleepover for her birthday. She will be turning 9 years old)My daughter is having 10 girls over(not including her and her sister) The theme is Hello Kitty. The times will be from fri. 6pm - 10am sat.
Am I crazy to have agreed to this . I have no ideas and I am usually very creative. I am an artist and I was an art teacher. I love kids but I do not know how to fill the time or make it fun.
My daughter is like Martha Stewart Jr. she thinks she has all the plans . I need some good sleepover/Hello Kitty ideas. Do you have any?
Heather Doub
14 Aug 2007 at 10:30 am
i can’t wait to see my kids face when she trys this
28 Oct 2007 at 5:17 pm
[...] make oobleck and a spaceship that will land in it,” I say to Hanna. “Cool, I love oobleck!” she replies. I [...]
06 Feb 2008 at 4:07 am
That thing is awsome the first time i did it was at school two days before Dr. Seuss’s B-day.Everybody asked for the recipe.
29 Feb 2008 at 6:04 pm
I LOVE this stuff. I can’t decide on what color to make it… Pink, or orange? Or blue? Maybe green… Turquoise? *shrugs* Purple. Hmmm… I think I’ll do purple. That sounds fine. Nah, I’ll just ask my sister which one to do.
30 Jul 2008 at 5:47 pm
I used to make this in my daycare class. I loved it because it was an activity that I could combine with a book, therefore making reading come alive. The other neat thing that I saw, was a scientist or product reviewer on a talk show, who made an entire batch of this stuff (enough to fill the bath tub that they created it in). They allowed several audience members to run across the substance. They were “walking on water”.
05 Aug 2008 at 9:00 pm
[...] is fun Jump to Comments I found this post and decided it was too easy not to try! 2 cups cornstarch and 1 cup water with a little food [...]
12 Sep 2008 at 7:09 pm
Here is something really cool and fun- take an old speaker (the huge kind) and pull the cover off so the little funnel is visible. cover securely with plastic wrap (not tightly, just completely) secure with duct tape. NOw plug it in to your stereo, lay it flat on it’s back, and fill the little funnel with oobleck. Turn the music on (something with a lot of bass) and watch your oobleck dance!
Valarie
08 Oct 2008 at 9:40 am
[...] Oh the places you will go….. - another one from Skip to My Lou. This is one of the many things listed in the sidebar. It is suppose to be a fun craft to make with the kids for Dr. Suess’s Birthday, but this recipe for ooeey gooeey slime is PERFECT for Halloween! The little man and I may just be making some up as you are reading this! [...]
11 Oct 2008 at 9:22 am
OK, So we made this stuff to play with before Halloween. My entire kitchen is a total wreck. We played with it so long I had to start spritzing it with water! We had the best time!
19 Oct 2008 at 2:02 am