This activity is ideally suited for the home, but teachers can also make it work if they can bring a microwave oven into the classroom or get someone who can run back and forth to nuke the kids’ creations.

Instructions:

  1. Combine 5 drops of vegetable oil (or any type of oil) with 2 tablespoons of corn starch and mix it in a Ziploc bag.
  1. Add 2 tablespoons of water plus a few drops of food dye, then reseal it and have kids knead the mixture.
  1. Pour the contents of the bag into a microwaveable bowl and heat it for 20-25 seconds. The longer you heat it, the harder (and more brittle) your mixture will become. The shorter you heat it, the softer and flexible it will be.
  1. Once cool enough to touch, mold the mixture around the shape of the bowl to create a disc shape, scoring the edges with a butter knife for portions you plan to cut away.
  1. Leave your disc in the bowl for 1 hour to dry, then break away the excess and pop it out for a homemade Frisbee.

 

Part of the fun of this activity is letting your kids experiment with different types of discs to see how they fly. Which ones fly the farthest? Can you make them curve? Have them experiment with disks in different shapes and sizes. Different lengths of cooking time, or by cutting them into different shapes like a Chinese star.