Garden Goop: Messy Play for Indoor Fun

Spring may be here on the calendar, but it's still snowy and slushy and darn right cold outside. The children would love to be outside in the yard, digging in the soil, planting seeds, picking flowers, and enjoying all the lovely colour that comes with warmer weather, but alas, we will have to wait a little longer. So until that glorious day arrives, we are going to dig around and pick flowers and make a wonderful goopy mess right here in our kitchen! Today we are making our own garden of goop! This activity is perfect for all ages. Children can pour, scoop, squish, and mix, all the while learning how colours mix to create new ones, cause and effect, make predictions, and become more comfortable with getting their hands dirty! The texture and consistency of this cornstarch concoction changes as they play, stir, and squeeze. It's very inexpensive, easy to clean up, and won't hurt the children if they try to taste it as they play.

Here's what you need to make the goop:

• Cornstarch. How much goop you want to make will determine the amount of cornstarch you'll need. For our bin shown in this article, I used 3 standard-sized boxes.
• Water. Again, the amount of water is determined by the amount of cornstarch you choose to use.
• Food colouring for colour swirling.

*I added silk flowers, plastic greenery, silicon flower pots, metal buckets, and a few plastic/metal garden tools. Some children do not like the feel of the goop on their hands, so I always provide scooping/stirring tools as an alternative to using their bare hands.

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Directions:

1. Pour the boxes of cornstarch into your play bin.
2. Slowly pour water into the bin, 1/2 of a cup at a time. For the 3 boxes of cornstarch, I used nearly 6 cups of water.
3. Mix constantly as you pour in the water. The ideal mix will produce a texture that is solid when you try to pick it up, but it becomes a gooey liquid as you let go.

Once the goop is ready, you can start to add colour and other accessories. This is the best part! The children love to watch the drops of food colouring swirl about as they mix and squish.

The silk flowers turned out to be a genius addition, as they dripped delightfully and look so pretty coated in all the goopy colour.

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The children filled the pots, planted the daisies, raked the goop, mixed the colours, and squeezed and swirled in their pretty little Goop Garden. For over an hour.



Any activity that keeps kids from 2 years to 6 years of age busy and engaged for that long is a win in my books!

Helpful Hints:

• The goop will dry up if you leave the lid off, but then you can add more water to it another day, if you like!
• If you choose not to keep the goop, it rinses easily down the drain. Just pour water in it as you tip it in the sink or bathtub.