Having Fun with Gak!

      You ever go on a pinning spree? Yea, I did too. Yesterday I somehow ended up doing searches for ‘science experiments’ and looking at other people’s boards about kids’ science stuff and projects and experiments. Wow. There are endless boards and even more pins. It’s kind of crazy the amount of time I spent looking at this stuff and, yes, I even made my own board for science experiments and projects to do with the girls. J

 

      The girls have been asking me to make Cloud Dough again and I was going to, but I hadn’t been to the store yet. So while I was looking at all the pins and sites, I found some cool things to do with the girls with stuff I already had on hand. I was thinking about Oobleck but ended up going with Gak. Man, there are a bunch of people who have done this and now I have too. J I went off of Laura’s blog ‘Come Together Kids’. Wow. If you have a whole lot of time and want something to read, go check out her blog and click on the Crafts and Activities tab. Pretty cool stuff. J

 

Anyway, back to the goo. Here’s what you’ll need:

2 4oz bottles of glue

Water
Food coloring
1 tsp Borax

Seriously, that’s it.

1) So grab yourself a bowl and pour both bottles of glue into it.

2) Then fill both bottles back up with water, shake ‘em up and pour them into the bowl with the glue. Stir it up.

3) Go ahead and add your food coloring now if you’re using it. (It really does make it more fun.) I had electric colored food colorings (Chef Duff’s stuff from Michael’s for a RockStar cake I made last year) and the girls chose pink. Naturally. ;)

 

4) Stir it up. Try and stir out any clumps of food coloring (mine was gel rather than a liquid) or your hands will look like you are starting to turn into an odd colored oompa loompa later. J

5) Now fill up a measuring cup with ½ cup of warm water and mix the Borax in it.

6) Pour the Borax and water mixture into the big bowl with the glue mixture. Stir it up. As you start stirring you will notice the change happening and you will feel it coming together and it will be stringy. (Watch your kids’ faces at this point. Seriously. It’s a cool expression that starts coming across their faces.)

7) Set the spoon aside and get your hands in there and work it with your hands.

8) Finally it will all come together nicely into a ball.

 

 

 

Give it to the kids and watch their reactions as they explore this strange-feeling stuff. J

    After creating volcanoes and hearts and snakes, using their hands to play with the Gak just wasn’t good enough. The girls had to get their feet involved. J


 

 

      Now here’s a neat tip for those empty glue bottles. After you’ve dumped out the glue and then shook the water in the bottles and dumped that out, add some dish soap to the bottles and fill them up with warm water. Give those a little shake and let ‘em sit. Once you let them sit for a while, dump out the soapy water and rinse them out. Now they are glue free. J And I found a great use for these on Pinterest. One lady filled them up with paint and let her little one use them for painting. I thought this was a great idea to cut down on the mess of painting with little kids while still letting them paint. Cute, huh?