June 10, 2011

What's Up With You?

Here are a few of the things we've been up to this summer.  Excluding swimming.  Pretend this post contains mostly pictures of swimming in the bright hot sun and that's what we've been doing for most of the week!  Make sure you get to the end of this post.  Instructions on an EASY way to make goo, gloop, glurch, silly putty, whatever you want to call it, are there.


We made a Rolly Polly house.  I'd link the instructions, but I haven't read them yet.  (Sorry, Mom)
See.  Actual Rolly Pollies.


Rock Candy in the works.  No one told the bugs this is a very scientific experiment so they're just diving in.  Ew!  Not sure we'll eat this stuff!  (If it ever forms)


Ruined two perfectly mediocre pair of flip-flops per these instructions. Aren't they cute!
Blew up a balloon using a soda.  I suggest using something with more bubbles.
Got my hair to curl using a link found here.  This is a big deal.  My hair WILL NOT curl.  Never mind that it took six tries......

And finally, the silly putty.  We've been talking about states of matter this week and let me tell you, the kids have got it.  We invited friends over to make a mess with oobleck and gloop.  I have made oobleck with the kids before and it is a HUGE mess.  And I've seen former students walking around with some kind of doughy substance in a ziplock bag.  Genius idea.  But my recipe calls for about four cups of fluid.  That won't work.  And I did not want a vat of silly putty.  So I did some research and did some math and now I bring you the easiest silly putty recipe ever!!  My kids LOVE it.  LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  The Little One will sit at the table with her silly putty and entertain herself for long enough to make me happy.  So here ya go...

Add 1 tablespoon glue, 1 tablespoon water and a few drops of food coloring to a sandwich sized baggie.  Close.  Mush to mix.  (Food coloring is optional.  You can also color it with tempra paint.)

Meanwhile, add 1 teaspoon Borax to 1/2 cup water and stir.  It will not completely dissolve and that's ok.

Add 1 teaspoon of the Borax solution (feel free to drop in the sciencey words at this point.  We skipped it.) to the glue mixture and mush mush mush.  Keep mushing until it pulls away from the sides and forms a good putty.  If you take it out early you'll have a goopy mess dropping everywhere.  Ask me how I know.  

Take it out of the bag and have fun.  It gets more firm the more you play with it.  Keep it in the ziplock bag or it will dry out.  This recipe made a ping pong ball sized amount of putty which works for us.  Doubling the recipe should work out just fine.

5 comments:

  1. http://goexplorenature.blogspot.com/2010/05/fun-friday-build-roly-poly-terrarium.html

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  2. Thanks. I'll go read that now.

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  3. Ok, our "pollies" are just fine. I'll even go find them a carrot to munch on.

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  4. Oh, man. I feel like a lazy mom after reading all you've done. ha ha! Good job Brandy. I've survived swimming lessons, Dr. visit and Ballet. I'm pooped. I love the rolly pollie house!

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  5. HA! We haven't had to venture to the doctor or ballet. Sometimes those things are way harder than putting a balloon on a soda. The rollie pollie house took five minutes to make. I really thought it would take longer.

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