When I was little my absolute favorite preschool activity was a large table full of goop, that perfect combination of cornstarch and water that feels solid when you grasp it and then turns to a liquid when you open your hand. Today we will be using the basic goop recipe, the same one used in the Candy Cane Goop, to make a Muddy Farm Animals Sensory Activity for our plastic animals.
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WHAT YOU NEED FOR THE MUDDY FARM ANIMALS SENSORY ACTIVITY
32 ounces cornstarch
warm water
food coloring (yellow, blue, red)
spoon, 2 large containers (plastic bins or cake pans)
plastic animals
dishtowel
AREAS OF DEVELOPMENT ENHANCED BY THE MUDDY FARM ANIMALS SENSORY ACTIVITY
exploration os senses
color exploration
language development
gross motor development
fine motor development
dramatic play
HOW TO SET UP THE MUDDY FARM ANIMALS SENSORY ACTIVITY
Begin by adding about 2 cups of cornstarch to one of the cake pans. Add approximately 1 cup of water and combine with a spoon or hands. If it seems too dry, add a little more water. If the goop becomes too runny, add more cornstarch.
Time to make the goop look like mud! Quinn looked into the food coloring box and said “But Mama, there’s no brown.” “Hmm, what do you think we should do Quinn? Could we make brown?”, I posed the question to him. Now, at this point, I could just tell Quinn how to use the colors to make brown, but this would not be as rich a learning opportunity as Quinn experimenting to solve this color mixing problem himself. “What do we do when we don’t have the color we want to use?” I ask. “We mix them,” says Quinn. And so we did.
Aid language development by giving words to your child’s actions. “You’re adding blue and yellow and stirring. Look! A new color! What is that? Hmm, green, not brown yet, what should we add now?”
“Yay, we made brown! What colors did you use to make it?” Giving your child the time and opportunity to explore color mixing will be such a richer experience than saying, “Mix blue, yellow and red together.”
Once your child decides he has made brown fill another cake pan or bin with a shallow amount of water. Put the two pans next to each other and add the plastic animals. Time for these animals to get messy! Give your child the opportunity to play with the animals in the “mud”. If your child is hesitant model the behavior. Plop a pig in the mud and say in a silly voice “Oh, I love splashing around in the mud! Wee! Cow, do you want to join me?” When your animals need a change of pace, wash them off in the water (Quinn decided ours cows only liked the water).
For 30 minutes we played with the animals, giving them voices, telling stories and laughing. When Quinn decided we were done all I had to do was throw everything into the sink and give the tables a quick wipe. Fun and easy!
