Science Fun: Experimenting with Homemade Goop

This week we are all about having some wacky fun with science.
Today, we started with a simple science experiment that was BIG on FUN!

Exploring Homemade GOOP

Goop is a cross between slime and flubber. It's not solid but it's also not 100% liquid which is why it's so fun to play with and perfect for little hands to explore. The mixture is "scoop"able and feels solid and  "grab"able (I am totally making up words here, I know!) to the touch. Yet as soon as you manipulate it - it seems to melt and runs right through your fingers.  Then you can do it all over again & if your kids are anything like mine - they will want to do it over and over and over again! 

What You Need:
baking soda
corn starch
water
bowl
paper towels or baby wipes
 - it will get MESSY!

What To Do:

1. We started by pouring 1 cup of baking soda,

plus one cup of corn starch,

and 1/2 cup of water into a bowl.

Note - add the water slowly, mixing everything up as you add it in.

The mixture will appear runny at first.

After mixing for a bit, the mixture will become more "scoop"able -

you can actually scoop it up with your hands & it feels solid as you do it.

The goop will melt right through your fingers like slime.

The Oldest Diva LOVED this experiment & wanted to see what happened if we added more corn starch. I let her pour in some more corn starch. We didn't measure at this point, I just let her go for it. It was an experiment after all.  She found that the addition of more corn starch made a difference in the consistency. The mixture was a bit thicker as you can see in the photo below.  She enjoyed watching & feeling it drip down her hands by the fistful. 

That of course led to adding more baking soda which made the concoction even thicker. It became harder to mix/manipulate and took a bit more hand strength from the Oldest Diva to scoop up but it definitely had more of a solid feel once she managed to get it in her hands. 

You can see how much thicker it looks texture wise in the photo below.

The more we played with it, the tougher the concoction seemed to get. 

The Oldest Diva started to grab clumps/lumps of the goop at a time in her hands. 

She could almost form a ball with it - look in her hands in the photo below.

Yet, the minute she manipulated it, 

the goop would liquify/melt through her fingertips. 

Fascinating stuff!

If you haven't taken the time to play with GOOP -
we highly recommend exploring this messy and fascinating concoction!

Bern