One of those "Look! I'm Not a CRAP mum! I do MESSY PLAY with my KID!" Posts. (Ooblek).

SO, I have become one of THOSE Mums! One of those mums who DOES things with her kids! Hooray! After drunkenly pawing over Pinterest crafty-keep-yer-kids-busy posts I've bitten the bullet and decided to attempt to do something fun/crafty/sciencey with my child and, of course, two of his friends so their mum ALSO thinks I am brilliant. Rather than let him destroy the house whilst I mainline coffee and scour Facebook, intermittently shoving the baby's dummy back in her mouth when she makes the slightest squeak. And obviously the activity I have chosen is a) easy to do b) quite interesting to play with c) colourful (i'm all about the colours) and d) easy. Did I mention the easiness? 

Getting stuck in.

It's OOBLEK. Yeah, i know, what the actual?! Ooblek is a name taken from a Dr Suess book for a slimey substance. What it really is: Ooblek the Non-Newtonian Fluid.. It's a viscous substance that has really strange properties that is fascinating for kids and adults a like. 

What you'll need:

Every surface covered if you're anal and don't like mess. 
Water
Cornflour (often referred to as Cornstarch in online recipes. Over here (UK) we call it Cornflour). 
Bowls
A big Bowl
Some more bowls
Food Colouring OR Cheapy water soluble kiddies paint. (Like the ones in the pic from ELC).

Directions: get the bowls, put some cornflour in each. Dribble in some watered down paint into each and mix thoroughly until you have a slimy, fairly thick consistency. Get the kids to stick their hands in it, squish it, roll it, splatter it all over the table, their face, their hair, the chairs, the floor etc (ok the last few are not recommended but may happen...). Then what WE decided to do was stick it in one big bowl (washing up bowl) and mix it all up together. It was fun and weird and slimey. It entertained them for aaaaaages and made a colossal mess. 

Then to clean up....just use warm water. But don't pour the ooblek down the drain. Best to either keep it in an airtight container for another day or let it dry out and chuck it in the bin. 

It actually rocked and now I am excited to try something else fun and messy. Yey!