Ooblek Dough

Oobleck Dough | Mama Papa BubbaHave you every come home from a shopping trip with surprise item in your bags?  That’s exactly what happened with this hair gel…  I do not use hair gel. Brad does not use hair gel.  No one in our house uses hair gel.  Yet after returning home from a grocery shopping trip with Miss G a few weeks ago, there it was in one of our bags.  My immediate thought was, ‘Crap!  Did we accidentally steal this?!’  I checked the bill and nope, we’d paid for it.  How it got through the checkout and into our bags, I have no idea.  

IMG 9880Anyways, knowing that we wouldn’t be using it in our hair anytime soon, I decided we’d use it for some sort of play.  And when nothing brilliant had come to mind in a few week’s time, I decided that we’d mix it with cornstarch.  Because cornstarch mixed with any sort of liquid = cool, right?

IMG 9889It took some serious mixing to bring the ingredients together first, then it took some serious kneading to smooth it out and soften it up.  The result, however, was quite lovely.  Pillowy soft and lightweight, this dough behaves a lot like ooblek does.  When handled gently and moved slowly, it’s stretchy and elastic, and when handled more abruptly, it breaks off in chunks.

IMG 9892Gracen wanted to play with it immediately, so together we collected some bowls, silicon moulds, and plastic utensils and brought everything outside to play with.

IMG 9893She began exploring her new dough  by sinking her hands into it, squishing it between her fingers, and poking holes into it…

IMG 9907Then it was time to fill all of the containers with “oatmeal”.

IMG 9909With a good breakfast in our tummies, it was time for dessert. ☺  The dough rolls into balls really nicely, so Miss G turned our ball collection into cupcakes with cherries on top.

IMG 9930When we were done with our first round of dessert, Gracen shouted, “Cookies next!” and took off into the house running.  She returned with a tray of creative table goodies – buttons, pony beads, straw pieces, gems, and sparkly pompoms.  I was put in charge of forming the cookies and she was in charge of decorating.

IMG 9919To show that we had eaten the cookies all up, Miss G crumbled them all into a bowl.  

IMG 9922The cool part was that as soon as she was done, the crumbles had already started melting together to form one mass. 

This was such a fun new dough to explore and play with.  One thing we did notice is that after being played with for an hour, it had dried quite a bit.  It definitely can be played with again, but this is not the type of dough you’ll want to leave out for very long when not in use.

Oobleck Dough

  • 1 cup hair gel
  • 1/2 cup water
  • food colouring (optional)
  • 2 cups corn starch

Mix the wet ingredients together.  Add in the cornstarch and mix really well.  Once the dough comes together in a mass, knead until smooth and soft.  

Play!

♥ 

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2 thoughts on “Ooblek Dough

  1. Super fun! Cornstarch is just SO amazing, right? I love all of Gracen’s fabulous baking. I would definitely eat one of her beautiful cookies! ;) Thank you so much for sharing, and sorry I saw this after I was done resharing on the big wall. I hope you’ll share again next Sunday! :)

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