Ooblek and glurch

Notice the really nice fall tablecloth that we are playing on! LOL!! It's plastic so it's easy cleanup for this type of stuff! This is the glurch. We use balls, rolling pins, butter knives, cookie cutters and cups to play with it!

Ooblek in the liquid form

Today the kids and I had fun with science. We made ooblek and glurch and it was messy, crazy fun! They had so much fun and it's super simple to make and to clean up.

The ooblek is from Dr Suess so we went to the library and we got some Dr Suess books but especially Bartholomew and the Ooblek. Then, we discussed matter and the way it can change click here for a unit lesson but in this lesson they call ooblek gooyuck.

With the ooblek we watched it go through a funnel, a strainer and become so hard that it was like a ball and then it starts to liquify in seconds and drip through your hands. Kylan said it was like "magic".

The glurch is kind of like a cross between silly putty and play dough and my kids just LOVE it...plus it's much easier to clean up then play dough.

Here are the recipes for both of them

Ooblek recipe:

2 cups water
2 boxes cornstarch
food coloring

Pour the water into a bowl. Add food coloring to the water, if you like. Add cornstarch to the water and mix until it becomes very thick. You will know when you have gooyuck! This ratio is about 2:1.

Glurch recipe

Solution 1

Water
White Glue
Food coloring

Mix the water and white glue together in equal proportions. For a big batch, use two cups of each. Add food coloring if you like.

Solution 2

Water
Sodium Borate (Borax)

Use the same amount of liquid that you used for Solution 1. If you used 2 cups of water and 2 cups of glue, use 4 cups of water for this solution. Pour in the Borax until you have a saturated solution.

Mix the solutions together and a mass will form. Remove it from the solution and knead it until it is of uniform consistency.