Thursday, September 14, 2006

Discoveries....

Typically on a Thursday morning we head out to a park to meet our wonderful friends for some playground fun. Today was turning out to be a trying day for the kids so we scrapped the idea of going out and stayed home for some discovery time.

We made something deliciously tactile called 'ooblick'. The last time we made it (yes quite a while ago...actually my first blog post) Hannah was not very old and Ben wouldn't touch it! We adults had fun with it and left it at that. Since then we haven't tried to make it but I've had the ingredients ready for the chance! We mixed it up and Ben dove his hands right in, he had a grand time mushing and gushing and ooing and gooing. He found that he can pick it up as a little bit of a solid but then it melts in his hands and into the bowl. Quite interesting. We tried to get as much as we could into our palms but it would slither and goo back into the bowl. Hannah...not too interested but she did try to put her finger into it for a bit.

Then...after that fun was over with we got some kitchen ingredients out to 'make' something. They each had bowls and spoons and ingredients like flour, salt, sugar... and they got to mixing and stirring their concoctions into gooey gloppy messes. So much fun! They tasted after each new ingredient added and in between. They really liked adding sugar and tasting that sweetness. Ben found a straw and slurped some sugary mixture from his cup. Smiles all around and a chance to do it themselves without direction. It was interesting to see the differences in their approaches.

Hannah had one big bowl and added her ingredients to it in small spoonfuls. She had one large spoon and was stirring everything together. Hannah preferred this activity much more than the ooblick from earlier.

Ben had the big bowl and a few little bowls all around him to which he added and subtracted ingredients. Each bowl had its' own spoon to mix the different consistencies. They had so much fun being creative in the kitchen! All in all, for a day that started off a little shaky, it turned out to be a fun-filled day!

Here are some pics of our kitchen discoveries.

OOBLICK

Hannah 'cooking'

Ben 'cooking'


Directions for ooblick:
1 part water
2 parts corn starch
big bowl
willing fingers to play

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