Pumpkin Gak

Have a little fall fun with pumpkin gak!

Everyone ready for a little bit of a toddler mess?

Just kidding… this wasn’t that big a mess. What is pumpkin gak? Loads of sensory fun for my toddler and a great way to play during the Fall and Halloween. Making this pumpkin gak activity was perfect!

Setting up pumpkin gak is so easy!

Materials:
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• pumpkins
• cornstarch
• water
• under the bed tub

Gak is one of my favorite go-to projects for kids of all ages, and I wanted to do a fun fall take on it. If you haven’t made gak before, jump on that train. It’s sometimes called Oobleck as a shout out to Dr. Seuss’s book “Bartholomew and the Oobleck”, but whatever you call it, it’s bomb.

To make gak, use 2 parts cornstarch to one part water. I did 1 cup of corn starch to 1/2 a cup of water here.

For my “fall take” on this classic, I added orange food coloring and two good spoonfuls of cinnamon to spice things up a bit (see what I did there?) and make it smell Autumn delicious. I poured the gak into our under the bed tub along with our pumpkins and some kitchen utensils.

My vision: have my son grab the gak with his hands and decorate the pumpkins with it, play in it, have messy fun with it.

His reality: never actually touch the gak, but work with his Grandma to spoon it over the pumpkins, whisk it, and turn it with a spatula.

It wasn’t exactly how I imagined this going (I’m thinking “What a fun mess this will be!” “Morning bath here we come!”), but it was still all the fun I was going for. Actually, spooning it over the pumpkins was pretty legit and so was using the spatula with the gak.

So, with your toddler, this could be a huge mess so be ready.

My toddler barely needed a wipe down but he is who he is and I love him to pieces. Either way, he had a lot of fun playing with this and the clean up was just a hose down of the tub and pumpkins, and putting basically every kitchen utensil I own in the dishwasher.

OH! I almost forget, once my baby (9 months old) got up from her nap, she totally loved this too. Double kid win.

Wouldn’t pumpkin gak be perfect for your toddler this fall? Introduce the season with this fun sensory experience!

Think you’ll try pumpkin gak with your toddler?