Children’s Craft Idea: How to Make Oobleck

I decided to declare this week messy week at our house and I am going to try some of the goopy, slimely crafts for the kiddos.

The first thing we tried was making homemade Oobleck.

If you are not familiar with this product it is really the craziest stuff.  It looks like spilled paint but when you touch it, it is hard like concrete.

The name Oobleck is from a Dr. Seuss book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck. You might grab this book from Amazon or check it out at the library to go along with your project.

You can have a great discussion with the kiddos about whether this is actually liquid or if it is a solid.  Oobleck is an incredibly unique substance and you will probably have a hard time deciding if it is solid or liquid because it acts as both!

I mixed this up for the girls to play with and really I could have spent ages myself playing with it.  (Ahem… perhaps that is why they kept yelling “My turn!” “My turn Mama!”)

So it just takes a sec to whip up:

• 2 cups corn starch
• 1 cup water
• dash of food coloring (optional)

And this takes a little elbow grease to mix it up so you can treat yourself to some chocolate while the kiddos are playing later.  You earned it!

It will really feel like concrete as you mix it- I gave up with the spoon and dug my hands in.  Your finished product should be nice and smooth like this:

And the kids had fun for about 30 minutes playing with this.  Now this is a messier project so you might consider doing this one outdoors. I was able to clean it right up off counters and such but be really careful if you have it anywhere near carpet as that Corn Starch is like cement.

I like to pour it on something disposable and big enough for the kiddos to squish around.  The little foil serving trays you find at the Dollar Store are perfect, an old Tupperware container would work or I just used Extra Large paper plates.

See how it pours out nicely from the bowl?  Like a liquid right?

Now look when we step on it.  Hard!

So really this stuff is so crazy and fun, I really hope you decide to make it for your little ones.  This is a great inexpensive craft for classroom parties too- we made this in our Kindergarten class last year for Dr. Seuss’s birthday and it was a huge hit!

If you really want to go for it, you could make a huge batch in a tub or bucket and let the kids jump around inside.

And here are a few other ideas if you want to really impress the little ones with how cool you are:

How to Make Flubber

How to Make Slime (any color you like)

How to Make Bouncy Balls (that really bounce!)

And once you are done with all that, I highly recommend this super fast and easy Homemade Sugar Scrub recipe.  It gets all the paint, glue and gunk off your hands!