Need a quick baby activity in your life? Here’s an awesome one.
Who doesn’t love a messy little baby? I cannot be the only one raising my hand right now. I felt like having a messy baby afternoon with my sweet 15 month old and we went right for one of our favorite quick baby activities. We called it Baby Gak Bath.
Gak (also called Oobleck in reference to a Dr. Seuss book) is a substance that’s not quite a liquid and not quite a solid. It’s a little of column A and a little of column B. The mash up of those two types of matter is what makes gak so intriguing to play with.
Setting up this quick baby activity is so simple.
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- Cornstarch
- Water
- Food coloring (optional)
Making gak couldn’t be easier! The ratio of corn starch to water is 2:1. For this activity, I made three batches for Baby Kate. I used 1/4 cornstarch + 2 Tablespoon water for each color. To dye the gak, add food coloring to the water before mixing it with the cornstarch. With a small batch like this, I used just one drop of food coloring. Nothing stained Kate or our tub – the color was plenty diluted.
Once I had each color made, I poured them into the bath tub for Kate to play with. I knew she was going to get messy messy with this activity so the bath seemed perfect. And it was!
She thought this gak was a hoot to play with. She couldn’t decide what to do with it! She’d catch it in her hand, let it drip on her leg, and (of course) taste test a few fingers full. The inconsistency of the gak’s consistency (sometimes acting like a liquid, sometimes a solid) had her curiosity level on over load.
My only concern was that the tub could get slippery from the gak and I was right. She didn’t fall, but I made sure she stayed on her romper bumper the whole time. There would be no gak dance party in the tub, much to Kate’s dismay.
Playing with gak is an incredible sensory time for babies. Bonus, it’s taste safe, easy to make, and surprisingly quick to clean up. Kate played for well over 10 minutes, so roughly 17 hours in baby attention span time. Once she was done, I turned on the bath and got myself another 10 minutes or so of happy baby play time.
Gak is the perfect quick baby activity if you ever need one. And it’s great for big kids too – toddlers, preschoolers, even our middle school neighbor loves playing in a batch of gak. It’s a total crowd pleaser.
Need more gak activity ideas? Try Art and Science: Painting with Gloop, Pumpkin Cinnamon Playdough and Ooblek recipe, and Rainbow Oobleck.
Would this be a great quick baby activity for you?
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Chelsea @ Life With My Littles says
This looks so fun! I’m sure my kids would love it! We did the same thing with food colored shaving cream tonight and they enjoyed that. We’ll have to try gak next!