Make your own Oobleck!

Northbrook Community Nursery School is so excited to share Teacher Buzz with the Patch community. Teacher Buzz is a blog written each month by one of our fabulous teachers. Our teachers use this opportunity to share with you their favorite things to do with preschoolers. It could be a much loved recipe, a craft idea or even a cool science experiment.

This issue of Teacher Buzz is brought to you by Mindy Koehler, who teaches the 4-day 3’s (Turtles) class.

I love activities that coincide with books that we read to our children. Dr. Seuss’ classic Bartholomew and the Oobleck lends itself perfectly to this type of activity. In the story, King Derwin is bored with the four types of weather in his kingdom. So he summons his Royal Magicians and challenges them to create something new to fall from the sky. Bartholomew begs him not to do it but King Derwin doesn’t listen and “oobleck” starts falling everywhere.

Making your own “oobleck” is easy, fun and messy (great to do outdoors). And, it is an activity that appeals to children of all ages. The youngest of children will enjoy the sensory experiences that occur when “playing” with oobleck. An older child may start asking questions about the scientific properties of oobleck as they experiment with the substance (oobleck acts as both a solid and liquid).

Here’s the recipe:

2 cups cornstarch

3 drops food coloring

1 cup water

Put cornstarch in a mixing bowl. Add food coloring to water.  Slowly add colored water to cornstarch and mix with a wooden spoon. Toss the spoon then dig in with your hands and enjoy! A word of caution, be sure not to put the oobleck down the sink when you are through. The cornstarch will not dissolve in the water and it will form a hard clump that can block your drain pipes.

Northbrook Community Nursery School has been a part of Northbrook for over 60 years. We are a non-profit, non-denominational nursery school which is licensed by DCFS and accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Our core philosophy is that children learn best through play, and the Creative Curriculum utilized in our programs reflects this core belief. We offer programs for children ages 18 months through 6 years. For more information, please visit http://www.ncnskids.org