Sensory Glop for Preschool Play


sensory glop

Our girls are really enjoying their Bob books!  We picked up a set for each of them.  We got the Alphabet one for Wren and the first Sight Words one for Grace.  I know very little about how to teach a person to read, but thankfully our girls are making it easy on me by learning without much instruction!  But since picking up the Bob books, the girls’ interest in reading has hit overdrive.  They ask every day, several times a day if we can read another new book.  And since we are working so quickly through them, I thought I would extend their life by creating some book related activities for the girls to do.  The first one we tried was sensory glop based on the Bob Book Jump.

Let me preface the discussion of this activity by saying this was very much an experiment.  I asked one of the sensory geniuses in the kid blogging world if she would recommend slime or oobleck as a stand-in for “glop.”  She said oobleck.  So I went to Pinterest to see if I could find a recipe and I found quite a few, but the one that intrigued me was this one for Sudsy Goop from Kids Play Box.  But there are no measurements in their recipe…um…we’re going to have a problem.

Not being a scientific minded person, I just poured some water into our sensory bin, added a few squirts of soap and some cornstarch (We tossed in some green food coloring just for fun, too!) and stirred while waited for it to come together in some version of “glop.”

This did not happen.

Recipe for Play - Sensory Glop

But what happened was a fun mixing activity for my 2- and 4-year-old girls!  It was soapy and green and somewhat textured, but it was definitely NOT glop.  And it never looked like the inspiration Sudsy Goop.

Sensory Glop - recipe for play for toddlers and preschoolers

Cut to the next morning, when I had tried everything I could think of to thicken the glop but what I kept getting was a bunch of water with some separated solids at the bottom of the sensory bin.  I started to dump out the water into the kitchen sink, when I just stopped midway and started working again with the solids at the bottom.

And slowly…very slowly…

it started to come together into “GLOP!”

Oh, I was so excited!

sensory glop - messy play FUN!

And G (our 4-year-old) was transfixed when she came downstairs and saw that I had made glop.  She played with the glop for most of the morning and had a blast!

Sensory Glop - messy play for little hands.

W (our 2-year-old) refused to touch it, refused to go near it.  It was a stand-off of toddler proportions.  She had better things to do with her morning.

You never know what activity will be a hit around here with which girl.  Thankfully, we had experienced success with the mixing part of the activity the day before.

Are you thinking you would like to make some of this awesome stuff?  Well, I can’t give you a specific recipe, but I can say this is what I learned:  Make sure your cornstarch to water ratio is at least 2 to 1.

ingredients for play sensory glop

Since our activity started by playing with soapy water and then adding the cornstarch, I would recommend keeping the amount of water you start with small.  We have a large sensory bin, but this activity may have better been served by a smaller bin with a LOT less water to start.  However, if you ever have way too much water, you can always just pour some out.

We also added food coloring for a fun color and then a packet of Kool-Aid for a cool scent.  You don’t have to add these things, but they do enhance the sensory experience of the glop.

Sensory Glop - fun for hours!

What I learned from this sensory glop experiment is sensory play is a true process of trial and error.  And the process is part of the learning and FUN for the kids.  Our girls spent a good hour mix-a-mixing their “glop.”  The fact that it never came together as “glop” on the first day was of no consequence to them.  They were just having fun with the process.

Do you do sensory play activities with your kids?  What are some of your all-time favorite sensory activities?  Please share in the comments!

A unique sensory recipe for play sensory glop


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