Icy Goop

We are no strangers to making goop (our basic recipe even made it into Banish Boredom), but I thought we could do a cool take on the activity to make a great combo of art, science, and sensory fun. Enter icy goop.


As you might know, our goop (or oobleck) is a non-Newtonian substance -- it behaves like a solid or a liquid depending on how much pressure you apply. We talked about that principle and then how adding ice to it might change its behavior. Cam said she thought that the ice would freeze it and make it more of a solid. Kane brought up though that the ice would melt. And they both concluded that once it melted, the addition of water would make the substance more liquid no matter how much pressure they put on it.

Knowing Cami, I insisted she don a bathing suit for the activity (you've seen the cover of our book, right!?). Kane claimed he didn't want to participate, but then proceeded to supervise from the sidelines. Shocking. But they both loved it and were disappointed I didn't have more corn starch to make another batch.

Give this one a try -- it's a great summer activity! You'll need:

- 3 cups cornstarch
- 3 cups water
- liquid watercolors
- ice cubes

Start by mixing together the cornstarch and water in a large bowl. You want to end up with a consistency where the mixture hardens when you press it with a spoon, so you might need to play a bit with the ratio of cornstarch and water to get there. Divide it evenly between six cups. Add a few drops of liquid watercolor to each cup and mix in -- again, you might need to add a bit more cornstarch after you've mixed in the liquid watercolors to retain the right consistency.

Let your kiddo experiment by pouring the goop into a container and playing with it a bit. Then see what happens when you add ice cubes. Be ready for some mess though ... Cam ended up sitting in the little container and pouring it all over!