Oobleck!

 

What is this stuff? Is it glue? Is it yogurt? Is it some particularly low-budget brand of Play-Doh? No...it's Oobleck!


This is a story activity based on Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss. In the story, a page named Bartholomew Cubbins must save the day when the king decides he's tired of all the "usual" things that fall from the sky, and asks his magicians to conjure up an all-new substance: "Oobleck." The gooey Oobleck starts clogging up everything and wreaking all kinds of havoc, until Bartholomew comes up with a very simple solution to end the whole mess.....

You can make your own "Oobleck," and it is strange, intriguing stuff. Technically, it is a "non-newtonian fluid," which means that it acts like both a solid and a liquid. When you pour it, it is liquid, but if any force is applied to it, it acts like a solid. So you can squeeze it, and it will feel completely dry; but the second you release your grip, it becomes liquid again!

Or you can run a fork through it, and you'll get dryish scratch marks,

 

but the second you lift the fork, all the Oobleck will ooze back together as if the scratch marks were never there : a little like that wet sand right at the water's edge on the beach.

According to my friend Wikipedia, this is "due to polymers, which are long chains in the structure of Oobleck. When you hit Oobleck hard, the polymers tangle and resist the force. When you push something in it gently, the polymers have time to move, and it acts like a liquid." So there you have it.

We read the book and then made our own Oobleck; it is messy, and you may hyperventilate slightly during the activity, but you will be pleased by how easily it cleans up with water.

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Recipe for "Oobleck"

-- 2 cups cornstarch in a large mixing bowl
-- About 1 cup of water (add a little more, bit by bit, if you want a runnier Oobleck)
-- a few drops of green food coloring so it will be green like the Oobleck in the book

Drop a few drops of food coloring into your water. Then, stir the water into the cornstarch with a fork until it is about as thick as pancake batter. I preferred ours a little on the thicker side.

Set your kids up with a bowl of Oobleck and some spoons, forks, whatever you like -- they will be pretty surprised -- this ain't their mama's Play-Doh!
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Further Oobleckiness:

Here is a rather entertaining, 4 1/2-minute clip from the show "Mythbusters," in which an Oobleck-style experiment (though not mentioned by its literary name) was done on a larger scale, using 200 gallons of water and 1,000 pounds of cornstarch. The segment includes a good explanation of how a non-newtonian fluid works. Adam (a "mythbuster") is able to run back and forth across the surface of what looks like a regular ol' liquid. Older kids (maybe 4 and above) will enjoy this.

Ecosystems

 

When you don't have a sandbox, you can use other materials to make "mini 'sand'boxes." Shown here: white sugar (Antarctica); brown sugar (desert); oatmeal (?? I think we called it "rocks"). Antarctica made an especially cool box -- it looked just like snow!

 

 

You can chat about what animal would really live where, and play a sorting game (scorpion in the desert, walrus in Antarctica). We did that for about 5 minutes, and then just went wild putting the animals wherever!

 

A word to the wise: don't put these sugar pans right on your lawn like we did. When the sugar spills (and it will), the sun can cause it to burn a hole in your grass. (Oops. Sorry, Daddy!) Next time, I'll do this on concrete or a deck, so I can hose it off.

DESERT THEME

Desert Mural:

Use some of the free, online coloring pages listed below to create your own desert mural for your child to color or paint.

Desert Coloring Pages:
Desert animal information and coloring pages
Desert animal coloring pages from edupics.com (scroll partway down page)
Realistic desert animals and plants to color
Friendly Lizard coloring page
Coloring page: Roadrunner catching a snake (cartoonish)
Rattlensake coloring page (realistic)
"Color" a desert online


Desert Diorama:
You can print out a diorama background, and then all of the plants and animals too, for your kids to assemble! Pretty cool -- and free!


Your Own Indoor Desert:

-- Fill a baking pan with sandbox sand or craft sand. If your child has a large collection of plastic animals (as my daughter does), help her find the desert animals and put them in the pan. Or, buy a couple of desert animals just for the occasion (a splurge, I know, but some kids play with animals a LOT, and then it's worth it). I'm not too strict about who "lives" in the desert after the first few minutes (our desert was soon inhabited, for example, by a Saint Bernard puppy).

Play-Doh Cactuses:

We just kind of thought this up as we were playing, and it was fun! Help your child make cactuses out of green play-doh, and then let her stick in toothpicks for the "spines." Talk about why some plants have spines as a defense mechanism. (Would your child want to eat something with spines? No way! Unless your child is like my infant son, who would probably try to eat that play-doh cactus anyway!)

Sand Art:

Show your child how to drizzle glue on paper, cover with sand, and then lift up the paper and tap the sand off to reveal "sand writing." Nora liked seeing her name written in sand.

PLAY DOUGH RECIPES

No-Cook Play Dough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water
Food coloring

Add food coloring to the water and mix the salt, flour, and colored water together, kneading to form a ball. (if too sticky, add a little extra salt and flour.)


Play Dough Recipe 2

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
1 Tbsp. cooking oil
2 tsp. cream of tartar
a few drops food coloring

Combine ingredients. Heat and stir until mixture forms a soft ball. Put mixture on wax paper until cool. Knead slightly to eliminate grainy texture. Store in tightly covered container. Recipe can be doubled.