The Horrendous Hullabaloo - Margaret Mahy

Sunday's Creative Workshop was a creative blast!

We played outside (of course) and walked around the block and picked daffodils. We made a delicious Hummus recipe and served it with carrot sticks and bell pepper slices and cauliflower florets. We (secretly) wrapped one of Natalie's birthday presents. We listened to a story. We knitted. And of course we had lots of Art exploration time!

Our story this week was The Horrendous Hullabaloo by Margaret Mahy.

I love this book and recommend it for teaching the letter P on my Capital Letters main lesson block page! X is for Xylophone / P is for Parrot

It is a noisy story with wonderful illustrations and lots of alliteration for P.

The art activities yesterday were all from MaryAnn Koh's excellent book Scribble Art: Independent Creative Art Experiences for Children.

Planned Activities

"Salty Watercolor" page 65

"Goop" (which we call Oobleck) page 118

"Basic Bread Clay" page 119

We planned for our third project to make the rumblebumpkins from our story using a moldable bakeable play dough recipe and then bake them and enjoy the new pretend play kitchen food in a tea party next week... but the Oobleck recipe was so much fun that the kids played with it for over an hour!

Notes for the "Salty Watercolor" Activity

have plenty of bottles of glue -- it works best if you have a bottle of Elmer's glue per child -- and make sure they squeeze well

do the art on something really sturdy like an inexpensive canvas

the colors lighten when they dry

you don't need one bin of salt per child... just set up one really big bin for them to share

I bought three boxes of kosher salt and didn't need it all -- one box was fine -- so Zac got a new sensory bin full of all the leftover salt

Some Photos and Quotes from Oobleck Play

This is Science instead of Art... but it's fun.

Why is this Oobleck so weird?

It's like wax.

It's like kinetic sand.

I wonder who found this out?

It's gooey but it's hard.

I just going to cover my entire hand in this.

We're just trying a random ratio.

This is like the funnest thing ever.

Ok, a little more water. Then don't mix it.

Put your hands in. Add some more cornstarch.

It's like green alien slime.
[after the food coloring went in]

It's alien snot.
[her partner corrects her]

I JUST PUT MY HANDS IN THAT!!!
[grossed out response]

Let's put a tiny bit of salt in it. Let's see what that does.

This is like the best day ever.
[this is from my almost-15 year old]

I want to see their snot so I'll be back.
[she says, casually walking past me into the living room]

Oh, Mom, it freezes, unfreezes, freezes, unfreezes when it falls.
[if you drop it from your hand and let it fall on someone else's hand, then fall down into the bin]

"Does it react to temperature?" I ask. "It reacts to pressure," Leah explains.
[pushing down hard to make it a solid, then lifting your hands and having the whole container rise into the air with you]

the Oobleck ratio: 

 two parts cornstarch to one part water

the girls divide up into teams and begin to measure their ingredients

after making the initial recipe, teams begin to experiment with other combinations of cornstarch and water

adding food coloring!

somehow both teams end up making exactly the same color

yes, alien snot seems to be a pretty apt description

lifting the pan into the air over and over -- it boggles the mind how something so gooey and liquidy can also be so strong!

Zac is positioned between the living room and the kitchen where he can see all the fun

this is the best day ever Mom!

milk, applesauce, raisin bread -- contented

experimenting over and over with Oobleck -- contented

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