The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

Goop and Flower Cupcakes!

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Inspired by the marvellous Teacher Tom and spurred on by a morning with nothing to do and the glorious 24 degree sunshine beckoning us outside….we made these little beauties!
Tubs filled with cornflour, salt, water, white vinegar and cream of tartar. Spoons for pouring and stirring, whisks, cupcake cases and a tin for making some cakes. Toddler fistfuls of grass and dandelion flowers. Independent concocting, investigative play!

Mix it all together and what do you get? Oobleck!! (well, a variant form of it anyway!) She soon realised there was something wonderful and strange about the consistency of her cake mix and needed to dig her fingers in to be able to stir it up. Liquid/ solid/ liquid/ solid again!

 Lots more water later and the goop became a wonderfully thick, runny syrup. Perfect for pouring.

 And stirring through with grass to make a tasty nature soup.

 Cooking up a storm!

 Ta Da! A tray full of grass and dandelion cakes, ready for baking!

 If only that was royal icing and those were sugar flowers!

 She requested a bowl of bubbly water and washed every last item herself, down to the paper cupcake cases and…..

 ……. even the grass 🙂 Then she dutifully took it back to the lawn and “returned” it, all fresh and bubbly clean. Nothing my girl loves more than a bowl full of water and plenty of things to pour it into. Happy day!

This activity is good for:
* outside play
* sensory and messy play
* knowledge & understanding of the world: investigating the combination of materials/ introducing descriptive language eg thick, runny, stiff, gloopy/ talking about cooking/ labelling things from nature
* imaginative play: cooking/ science laboratories
* independent and open-ended learning

Comments

  1. rachelle @ tinkerlab says

    Yum Yum Yum!! What child wouldn’t love to be given free reign to invent and concoct outdoors?! I know that mine would love this. Seeing her clean the paper cups and grass made me smile. And wouldn’t this make for great earth day activity?

  5. RedTedArt says

    Oooh we played with Dandelions this week! They can be such fun, no? A weed and yet so pretty!!

    Thank you for linking up to Kids Get Crafty!!!

    Maggy

  8. Kate @ An Amazing Child says

    Love love love goop! Looks like a liquid but feels like a solid. Oh so very cool. I really can’t wait for J to be ready for imaginative sensory play. So many fun fun things to do. Dandelion cupcakes, yummo 🙂