Ooblick

Today we played in ooblick, which is a non-Newtonian fluid. What does that mean? That it has the properties of both a solid and a liquid. And it is super easy to make. In our old chafing pan, I dumped a whole box of cornstarch. I added several drops of yellow food color. Then I gradually mixed in 1 1/2 coffee cups of water (don't you love my precise measuring system?), using a fork to chop up the lumps. It looked disconcertingly like scrambled eggs in reverse...first chunky, then liquidy smooth.

One of the kids asked me what I was making. I told her I was making a mess. Which was partly true...it was a future mess of theirs. They played in it as part of our centers. There were a couple forks in the bin, and hands. They rubbed it, scooped it, rolled it in balls and watched it melt over and over. And, of course, splattered it all over the table. The most fun is had when the biggest mess is made. Lucky for me, it is pretty easy to wipe/sweep up.

Playdough

Today, the kids in my class (all three of them...it was a holiday, you know) played with the new batch of play dough I made on Friday (after the boy got sick on the batch I had made Thursday). This isn't your normal play dough...it is chunky. I found a reference to adding rock salt to the play dough in place of a portion of the table salt (theteachertom.com). I replaced about half.

We have been discussing what it is in the dough that makes it chucky. Many suggested ice. We discussed that ice would make the dough squishy as it melted (I need to get an ice cube and sacrifice a chunk of dough to observation). Crystals, beads, and diamonds were also suggested. Earlier today, we did some salted watercolor art (watercolor on fingerpaint paper, then sprinkle table and rock salt on it...see what happens). While we were looking at the play dough later, I asked if the chunks looked familiar. One of them realized that they looked like the rock salt. We will see if they remember that tomorrow :)

So we spent our time flattening, smooshing, squishing, cutting, pinching, and rolling our new chunky dough. In other words, we had fun.

Here I am!

While discussing a blog written by a preschool teacher I recently started reading, a coworker mentioned I should write a preschool blog. So here it is. I doubt I will be as philosophical as the above mentioned blog, but I can share ideas, activities, successes and failures that I encounter in my daily adventures. And it may be more graphic than you want...like the boy who threw up all over my freshly made diamond play dough today. That was fun. But the family that brought their 7 week old baby sister in to visit made the day a whole lot better. The little girl that was in my class before staying home with mommy and baby came in the door, saw me, and threw herself in my arms. One of the best things to happen all week, actually <3