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Playdough is inherently scientific!
Like math, scientific concepts can often be challenging for teachers to incorporate. Little do they know, however, that playdough is inherently scientific! Anytime a child is exploring, testing, theorizing or using their senses they are participating in a scientific lesson. Playdough brings out all of these things in children’s play.
When a child squishes two colors of playdough together to create a swirly lump of mixed colors they are hypothesizing and experimenting. Whether the child knows what will happen or not doesn’t really matter. They are creating a hypothesis, conducting an experiment and analyzing their data. Science truly is child’s play.
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Oatmeal Playdough
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Give a preschooler a stack of blocks and a lump of clay and watch what they do. They may combine the two materials into a tower that goes higher than it would without the clay. They may use the clay to build a moat around a block castle. They may do both of these things one right after another. You will certainly observe them testing, exploring and discovering the options for this combination of materials. They are learning that different materials have different purposes and that they can manipulate them for certain outcomes.
The sensory aspect of playdough is very obvious and allows children of all ages to learn through their senses. The colors, scents, and feel of the playdough are teaching them and allowing them to use their knowledge of this familiar material to understand more and more about the world. Consider the comparison of a traditional playdough and a flubber-like playdough. One may be fluffy and stretchy while the other may be smooth and squishy. The comparison teaches children different sensory aspects of the materials.
If playdough is combined with other objects and materials, the scientific floodgates are open wide! Challenge children to build a platform that will hold a book. Break them into teams and encourage them to make several plans, gather materials, build, test, rebuild and retest. This is merely one simple idea to combine science and playdough. Not only does something like this encourage scientific discovery, it also includes collaboration and engineering practice. These are major components to STEM curriculum and learning.
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Another incredible option for scientific playdough play is to include children in making playdough. Many recipes for slimes and gaks include the use of ingredients such as school glue and liquid starch. Older children can measure and mix these materials to change the molecular properties of the common polymer which is glue. The addition of liquid starch makes the molecules of the polymer longer which thickens the glue and makes it stretchy and slimy. This is a simple scientific experiment that allows children to get a hands on experience with molecular changes.
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Another scientific concept tied to playdough type materials is in the study of non-Newtonian fluids. Oobleck, or the combination of cornstarch and water, is a common material used for exploring the properties of non-Newtonian fluids. These fluids are both a solid and a liquid. Oobleck can be picked up like a solid and also flows like a liquid. It is a fascinating and fun material for children of all ages to explore. Young children love the feel and the mess of the ooblek as do older children. Any slime, gak, flubber, or mud that can be both a solid and a liquid is a non-Newtonian fluid.
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Playing with Ooblek
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