In Our Little "Tinkerlab": Painting in Goop!

This idea came straight out of Rachelle Doorley’s book “Tinkerlab: A Hands-On Guide for Little Inventors” which I highly recommend! She has an arts degree from Harvard, conducts workshops on visual thinking and hands on creativity and has also dipped into her experience with her own daughters. The cover says 55 experiments but it seems like a lot more! Salt & glue paint, marble rolling, paste painting, rope and pulleys, DIY robot, vinegar & baking soda concoction, milk powder paint, egg yolk & tempera paint, slime, salt & ice experiments, yeast & sugar experiment, DIY light box, naked egg, lemon invisible ink are few of the many explorations that little children will love.

Some ideas are super simple yet had never occurred to me, such as chalk drawings on sidewalks! It is also a mini trip back to chemistry class – Did you know vinegar dissolves the shell of an egg over a period of 24 hours? Or when you write on a paper with lemon juice and hold it near a heat source, the lemon part turns brown before burning the paper , hence the idea of invisible ink? It is not only a helpful guide for parents with little children but also a fun read!

We made goop on a holiday, stirring two cups Cornflour with three cups Water in his sensory tub. After a good stir, he started adding paints. A little pink, then a little yellow, then some peacock blue and finishing off with jet black – turning goop into goo!  My tiny tot insisted on brisk stirring instead of gentle whirls, hence the colors mixed too soon! But that half hour was the happiest half hour of the day!