Ghost Mud

I don't think we need a lot of words for this one: twenty-four rolls of discount toilet paper, nine 4-year-old boys, and instructions that we need to get all the paper off of all those cardboard tubes.

We tried rolling them down ramps we built with blocks, unfurling them on rhythm sticks we used as spools, throwing them across the room, working as a team, releasing it from the top of the loft, but just holding it in our hands and turning it was by far the most popular.

When we were done -- or rather when Teacher Tom decided it was time to move on, because it was becoming increasingly clear that we weren't going to be done with this until everyone was crying and the TP was in itty-bitty pieces -- we worked together to move it into the sensory table.

This is where we performed the "experiment" of adding small scoops of Ivory Snow and water, then mixing it until we had "clean mud," better known during the Halloween season as "ghost mud."

We've done this for 9 straight years. It's always fun to make, a process we stretch out over 2 days and at least 2.5 classroom hours, but once it's there in the sensory table, all slippery, gooey, and smelling of good wholesome soap, the kids abandon it, most of them saying, "It's too messy." They never abandon real mud. 

Kids!