Tactile Chemistry

We started off with the plan of making fluffy stuff, using cornflour, shaving cream and food colour. We made up a bowl of pink and then made a second bowl of purple fluffy stuff.

Good fun in the making.

NOTE: Put the food dye on the shaving foam, not cornflour, this helps it to spread out rather than making a mixture with lots of little spots.

We moved the activity outside as it was obviously going to get pretty messy pretty quickly (and this helped the smell of the shaving foam dissipate too)

I gave Miss 4 a tray to get playing, and popped inside to get my camera. By the time I came out again, the two colours were mixed into one.

For a while this was great, but after half an hour or so Miss 4 found she couldn't really build the things she wanted to build with it.

We tried adding baby oil (as I'd just read a recipe for moon dust that used that). No improvement.

Miss 4 was quite sure that water would fix our problem.

It didn't make it easier to build with, but it was fantastically tactile and great hands on science (it turned it into a slightly oily cornflour gloop - a non-Newtonian fluid). And Miss 4 was very much pleased.

To finish off I let Miss 4 use the hose to wash it all down with. Occasionally I just feel like one of those awesome pinterest mums ;).