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READING FOR CHILD AND YOUTH CARE WORKERS
 ISSUE 31 • AUGUST 2001

IN A NUTSHELL BY HENRY W. MAIER

Making Your Own Fun

A few weeks ago I visited a happy and well-together family. They were all, mother and two young children as well as, off and on, the father, working together in the kitchen. They were making, with great delight and enthusiasm, their own "Silly Putty", sometimes called "Flubber (Gak)". It occurred to me that this would be an activity very well adaptable to care work. Let’s go.

Here is the recipe:

  • Have two good-sized serving dishes or bowls, and two long-handled wooden spoons or two wooden chopsticks
  • In Bowl 1 put ¾ cup of warm water and 2 tsps Borax (you can buy Borax at any grocery counter. It comes in large boxes, more than you want, but it’s lower priced.)
  • In Bowl 2, put 1 cup warm water, 1 cup Elmer’s glue, a few drops of food coloring of your choice
  • Pour contents of Bowl 1 into Bowl 2 and stir strenuously until the mixture becomes a heavy, gooey mass.
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    By continuously stirring, the mixture (the dough) becomes more and more translucent, pliable, and rubbery, as if you had bread dough. With further stirring the liquid becomes absorbed and it’s now a bouncing mass. You can now separate the big mass into smaller quantities and you now have balls of "Silly Putty".

    This putty you can shape into figures of your choice, which, after a while, return spontaneously to the original shape of the ball. The dough, or Flubber or Gak, (folksy descriptions of this gooey mass) doesn’t stick to your hands or any other surface, and bounces when you drop it on hard surfaces.

    But please note the dough appears very attractive and tempting, but it must not be tasted or eaten: a strict "No-No". Remember the major ingredient of this attractive mass is glue.

    For its preservation place it in a plastic bag and store it in the refrigerator. It will be a fun toy for the kids and yourself for time to come. This whole recipe will give you ten times as much as you can buy for one dollar in a plastic egg of Silly Putty.

    Have fun, and good cheers,

    Henry
    Hwmaier@aol.com

     

     

     

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