Gak Attack! How to Make Your Own Gak in 6 Simple Steps with Only 3 Ingredients

I had the night off the other day to get together with two dear friends for pedicures and dinner as a sort of send off, best wishes on a happy birth for Erin who is due with baby number two in the next month. It was such a great night. We got to relax and chat and talk about all the women stuff you don’t spend much time talking about when you’ve got the whole family together.

At one point we were sharing our favorite quick activities for our tots (we all have kids 4 and under) and Amy mentioned how much she (and her daughter) liked Gak. I had heard of it but I assumed it was messy so I’ve never bothered. Well after hearing all about it from Amy I made it our activity for the next day!

I’m glad she brought it up because now I love it too!

It’s wonderfully fun, kinda cool, kinda slimy, pliable, moldable, fun to squish and cut and fold and shmoosh.

If you have a kid who likes play doh give this a whirl!

Here’s our favorite Gak recipe.

You’ll need:
A bowl of any kind, large enough to hold a few cups and for a tot to stir without splashing
Separate bowl or cup for mixing Borax and water
A spoon or spatula
8 ounces of white glue (usually two regular sized bottles)
Food coloring of your choice (optional)
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon Borax
Additional hot water for filling the empty glue bottles

Directions:

1. Pour all the glue into your bowl.

2. Fill glue bottle half way with warm water and shake to get all the glue out. Pour into bowl. (I’m not sure that this step was really necessary but we did it and I haven’t tried making another batch without doing it).

3. Add food coloring if desired.

4. Stir the glue, water and food coloring until mixed.

5. Add 1 teaspoon Borax to 1/2 cup of warm water and stir.

6. Pour Borax-water solution into bowl and mix.

It’ll get stringy and and form a solid pretty quickly. Ditch the spoon and use your hands to squish it up. Then plop it on your table and have fun! We used paper towels to soak up the extra water but once you’ve got your mixture formed it’s a completely mess free way to play.

Store your Gak in a zip bag to be able to use it over and over again.

We had fun squishing it, stretching it and smooshing it.

We let the boys have at it for a while as I cleaned up the supplies and got out some play doh tools.

It was a nice change of pace from play doh and most of our tools worked great in the Gak.

Miles liked making balls and tearing it.

Graham was into rolling it out and trying to copy Daddy’s techniques.

It was a great diversion while I got dinner ready one night and the whole family had fun talking about how it was so different from anything they’d used before.

Alice says GIMME THE GAK!

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