Baby Play with Goop
We finally did N’s first sensory activity sitting up!
I’d long admired a certain image from Fun at Home with Kids’ Super Easy Sensory Play: Cornstarch and Water. Go check it out, it’s the last image in the post – her baby son holding goop in both hands, and it’s dripping down into his lap. On a sheet. Indoors!
If you read my posts, you know that I’m not averse to a good mess, and in fact E has played with goop several times after age 2. {It’s not even that I didn’t want her to do it at a younger age but I simply didn’t know about sensory activities back then.}
However, it never would have crossed my mind to let a baby play with goop if I hadn’t seen this awesome AWESOME image! After all, he wouldn’t know to keep it in the box, and it would be all over him, right?
And of course, that’s exactly what happened. But you know what? It’s actually totally not a big deal – dry goop can easily be vacuumed, or in our case, washed away with a hose. We did take this activity outside – always an option for when you know that things will get messy.
(N was 8 months old.)
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Materials for Baby Play with Goop:
- Cornstarch.
- Water.
- Baking dish, sensory bin, cookie sheet, tray or similar to hold the goop.
- Sheet, shower liner, blanket or similar to catch the overflow (optional).
Goop is a really simple sensory material, made from two simple ingredients but with pretty awesome characteristics. It’s a non-Newtonian fluid: Solid under pressure, and a liquid when you release the pressure.
Note: As mentioned above, it’s easy to clean up, especially once dry, but make sure not to pour larger amounts down your drain to avoid clogging it! Dispose of it in the garbage instead.
To make goop, mix approximately 2-3 parts cornstarch with 1 part water.Â
For the correct consistency, you want to go easy on the water and add more as needed. {Here‘s an example of when I didn’t follow my own advice – it’s a good thing that you can still have all kinds of fun even with “failed” sensory materials 🙂 }
As usual with baby play activities, I kept it simple, and in this case, that meant keeping it plain and white. You can definitely add any color you want but I figure there’s plenty of time for that later on in Baby N’s life.
He immediately dug his hands in.
He touched the goop to his mouth several times, but he didn’t actually try to eat it.
Things got very messy very quickly – but I’d definitely prepared myself for it 😉
In between exploring the goop, N came over to me and shared 😉
After he’d played with it for a while, I started picking up handfuls of goop and letting it drip down for him. He LOVED it and kept grabbing the portions that were dripping down
to inspect them further.
In case you had any doubts about the messiness of it all – yep, it was every bit as messy as I’d expected it to be! Of course, it was just as much fun as I’d expected as well 🙂
When N was done, I took off his clothes before easily rinsing the goop off his hands and face. Once the goop had dried, I shook as much as I could out of his clothes and put them into the washing machine. The goop on the ground was hosed off just as easily. And it was like there never had been any goop at all – except for the fun memories, of course 🙂
 Has your child played with goop? Would you be open to letting a baby try it? Leave a comment below!
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Hi can you use this for a baby the age of 7 months he eat everything so worried he will eat it
Hi Melisa, goop is suitable for babies in that it’s taste safe and won’t hurt them if they taste a little bit. At the same time, it doesn’t taste good, so most kids wouldn’t want to eat any amount of it. However, I can’t promise that your son won’t eat it. If I were you, I’d make a small amount of goop and see how he does.
If he does eat the goop, you could keep the activity in mind for later and set him up with a little water or soap foam for now.