March 2nd is Dr. Seuss’ birthday, and that means it’s time for some serious fun! When I taught kindergarten we spent the whole day doing themed work. We added colored goldfish for “One Fish, Two Fish”. We made striped hats displaying the “at” word family for “The Cat and the Hat.” We read “Horton Hears a Who” for religion class. And we read, and read, and read. It was my students’ favorite day of the year. I have nearly all of Dr. Seuss’ books and tomorrow will be full of rhyming fun in our house. We are even going to story time at the library.
Tonight right before bed our whole family made oobleck from “Bartholomew and the Oobleck”. Oobleck is a mysterious sticky green goo. Ours is white, because we ran out of food coloring. Even without the green color, this was my kiddo’s FAVORITE activity ever. Seriously, this stuff is great. Even my husband who hates messy couldn’t help but fall in love with this stuff. You see, when pressure is applied it turns into a solid, but when there is no pressure it is liquid. So you can pour it from bowl to bowl, but if you try to punch the surface you won’t make a dent!
Supplies: 1 Cup of water and 1 1/2 Cups of cornstarch (I added a couple extra tablespoons because I wanted it extra thick. It will be hard to stir but keep going until all the clumps are out and then let it sit a few minutes. Give it another stir and you’re ready to go!)
Moo started out curious but reserved.
Then she really got into it!
As always, The Captain was just thrilled to make a mess!
This is when I showed Mari to poke the surface hard and she thought it was fabulous. Then we would gently touch the top and our fingers would slide right in. I was amazed how she grasped the difference between the solid and the liquid.
So cool!
The photo is sort of blurry, but you can tell I formed a ball in my hand by squeezing a bunch in my hand.
But as I release my hand it turns back into a liquid. Magic Oobleck!
Happy Playing! (And read some Dr. Seuss tomorrow!)
P.S. If you have a cookie sheet, food coloring, and a subwoofer make some cool dancing oobleck like this!
