Celebrating Dr. Seuss: Making OOBLECK!

 

March 2^nd is Dr. Seuss’ Birthday!!!  So, this week we’re getting out our favorite Dr. Seuss books to celebrate!

 

A great Dr. Seuss book that has a super fun activity to go with it is Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  This story and activity is sure to be lots of fun for children and adults of all ages!  The book itself is quite lengthy so it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to read to my little ones.  Instead, I told them a summary of the story myself while drawing pictures on their chalkboard.  This was a fun variation of the usual stories we read from books.  Both boys loved listening to the story and had me retell it over and over again!  Anthony then started telling his own stories.  Telling stories (called “narratives” in the speech and language world) is an important part of language development.  Take time to encourage your children to tell stories about things that have actually happened but also to make up tales on their own.  

So here’s my very shortened version of Bartholomew and the Oobleck….  If you have a copy of the book you can show the pictures from the story as you go along.  This is a story about a king, a village boy, magicians, sticky, gooey oobleck that falls from the sky, and the power of three special words, “I am sorry.”  Once upon a time there was a man named King Darwin.  King Darwin decided that he was tired of the four things that fell from the sky – rain, snow, sun, and fog.  He wanted to make a new kind of weather.  Bartholomew Cubbins, a boy who lived in the village, came to the castle and begged the king not to create something new that fell from the sky, but King Darwin refused to listen!  King Darwin called on his magicians to cast a spell!  The magicians uttered one word… oobleck.  “What is oobleck?,” the king asked.  The magicians replied, “Won’t look like rain, won’t look like snow, won’t look like fog, that’s all we know.  We can’t say anymore.  We’ve never made oobleck before.”  The magicians went back to their cave and worked all night.  When the king awoke in the morning, he looked out his window and saw big, gooey, green globs falling from the sky!  King Darwin was so pleased by this exciting new stuff falling from the sky.  Bartholomew Cubbins was not!  He ran around the village telling everyone to stay inside!  He ran to the bell ringer, but the bell wouldn’t ring because the oobleck was stuck to it!  He ran to the trumpeter but he couldn’t blow his trumpet because there was oobleck stuck inside!  The big blobs of oobleck start breaking the palace – there are messes inside and outside!  Bartholomew goes to find the magicians to reverse the spell but their cave is covered in oobleck as well!  Bartholomew returns to the castle where he finds the king stuck to this throne!  Together, King Darwin and Bartholomew try all different magic words to stop the oobleck, but nothing seems to work!  Finally, exhausted, the king says, “This is all my fault! I AM SORRY!”  Those three words, “I AM SORRY,” turn out to be just the magic words they need because the oobleck starts melting away until it is completely gone!  Sometimes saying, “I am sorry,” can make even the biggest problems go away.

Now as I said, this is a very shortened version of the story and unfortunately, this retell doesn’t have the brilliant rhythm and rhyme that Dr. Seuss books have, but it’s still a cool story and the boys loved it!

Now it was time for us to be the magicians and use our spell to make OOBLECK!  Here’s what you need:

 

Bowl

Cornstarch

Water

Green food coloring

Spoon

I highly recommended putting a tablecloth or some kind of plastic covering under your work space because this can get very messy!

We took out our magic wands (a pencil and a drumstick) and were ready to use our magic.  Put 1 ½ cups of cornstarch in the bowl.  In a separate cup mix 1 cup of water with a few drops of green food coloring.  Pour the green liquid into the bowl and mix it together.  Use your magic wands and say what the magicians said,

“Won’t look like rain,

Won’t look like snow,

Won’t look like fog,

That’s all we know. 

We can’t say anymore. 

We’ve never made oobleck before.” 

 

 

 

 

The substance is very hard to mix and will seem solid, but once you get it all mixed together, pick some of it up with your hands.  You will find that it feels hard but then melts in your hand and spreads out.  That’s because oobleck has properties of both a solid and a liquid.  Yup, a science experiment!  The consistency all has to do with how much pressure is applied.  I promise that even you will be amazed by the feel of oobleck.  I even had to save it for Hubby to feel when he got home.  When I worked at the school, all of my students loved making oobleck.  They always begged to make it again and again! 

I was very curious to see how the boys would react to touching the oobleck.  As I suspected, they were at first very resistant to touching it.  It sticks to your hands and can be hard to manipulate, but once they got into it, they loved it!  This is a total sensory experience, which means there is a tone to talk about! What does is FEEL like, what does it SMELL like?  Have you ever FELT something like this before?  We let it ooze through our fingers and spread out on the table.  We rolled it in our hands to make a ball and then made our hands flat and watched it EXPAND.  I was surprised at how Michael reacted to it.  He usually doesn’t like anything sticking to his hands but he loved playing with it!  Keep in mind the oobleck is not edible so keep an extra eye out!  It was fun to talk about the story and RECALLING DETAILS as we played with the oobleck. 

 

The lesson in the story should also not go unmentioned.  We talked about how saying, “I AM SORRY,” when we have done something wrong is super important!  Our friends like when we apologize and it can make them feel better!  These lessons are important for the social aspect of language development.

Hope you get a chance to try out this oobleck experiment yourself!  More Dr. Seuss activities to come this week!

For more information on Dr. Seuss, his books, free printables , activities, and games, visit:

www.seussville.com

Love & Language,

Marisa