I am sure you have played with Oobleck at some point or another in your lifetime. We saw the official instructions on the About.com site while looking for new Kitchen Science Experiments. It would have done us good to refresh…but who has time for that! Here is what we did…
One box of cornstarch. This is a cheap form of entertainment because the cornstarch is the only purchase involved and it costs less than a dollar! According to the instructions we did not read, you should add one part water, 1.5 to 2 parts cornstarch. We did it one for one. It didn’t work. We would have given up then, but this morning I saw that the extra water had separated from the starch in the bowl. See, it pays to be a terrible house keeper! We poured the extra water out and away we went!
Emmalee decided to grab the cup and pour the water in before anyone realized what she was doing :0) That is kind of how all our days go…Emmalee making a decision and the rest of us scrambling to stop her a few moments too late, busy little girl.
Have a pudgy little set of hands give it a stir. Do understand that you will have a hard time stirring this solution. It is like quicksand, the more you stir things up the more resistance it has.
Once it is mixed you will find you can hit it hard with your fist and it acts like a brick wall. On the other hand, if you put your fingers into it gently, they will sink to the bottom.
It was fun to plop a pile on the counter and push it around. If you push on it, it becomes a solid, but when the pressure is released, you guessed it, liquid again!
Did I mention that Eli jumps in up to his elbows when he finds something fun to do :0)
*Drip*Drip*Drip*
So if you grab a handful...slowly...you can squeeze it in your fist to form a snowball, however, if you stop squeezing it turns instantly to a gooey syrup and drips right through your fingers.
The kids loved this do-over so much I wasn’t sure if my kitchen would survive.
I didn’t mind too much because those kids were entertained for over an hour, even Emmalee! We had to remove her from the crime scene at dinnertime because she wasn’t about to leave on her own.
I have to say that this has been the biggest mess of all of our experiments, but it was probably the most entertaining. I couldn't keep my own hands out of the bowl.
I have even more to show you but will have to wait until tomorrow, so for now,
Happy Crafting!!!
Elizabeth made this a month or so ago. Did you do make it "dance"? ;)
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