Messy Mixing Madness

Yesterday at Pre School some of the children created an activity for themselves, supported by the adults, which involved mixing glue and paint together.  This then evolved into adding all sorts of different colours and glitter and then using the resulting substance to make a picture.  I began wondering if I could develop this idea to use at home or take it a step further at nursery.  I wondered what might happen if I put a whole load of different craft materials and kitchen ingredients on the table along with bowls and spoons and just let the children mix things together in their own way.

I simply went around the kitchen and found the 'ingredients.'  We used, flour, salt, bicarb of soda, vinegar, water, yellow and blue paints and some PVA glue.  I also found some small tubes of glitter.

First Girl decided to use the salt.  She poured some into her dish.  Then she asked for the yellow paint and mixed the two together.

Girl has a rotational schema so she really enjoys mixing.

Some bicarb made the mixture more of a paste and then some vinegar gave it some fizz which was fun!

Boy joined in a few minutes later and spent about 40 minutes gradually changing his mixture and talking to himself and to me about what was happening.

After he'd used up all the ingredients he asked if he could put his hands in and feel it.  I suggested he do this in the sink!

I asked him to describe how it felt and he said 'Smooth, warm, slimy!'  If you decide to have a go at this I offer the following advice; open the windows - it was pretty noxious, cover the surfaces, have plenty of cloths at the ready, be prepared for the mixtures to get everywhere - I had to clean the floors and the walls, wear aprons!