Grace and Nathan’s Marvelous Medicine

We’ve been working our way through more Roald Dahl chapter books these past few months, including ‘The Witches’, ‘James and the Giant Peach’ and ‘George’s Marvelous Medicine’… and having a blast I must say.

This weekend as we were midway through ‘George’s Marvelous Medicine’, we had a little intermission to bring the book to life by concocting up our own version of the marvelous medicine.

Materials and equipment
Water
Food colouring
Containers, cups, bowls
Assortment of kitchen utensils (spoons, whisks, pipettes, syringes)

Nathan and Grace spent close to an hour mixing, pouring, stirring the coloured waters together to make their ‘medicine’ mixture. And then came the magic bit--I set out some bicarbonate soda and vinegar and instructed the children how to mix them into their medicine to create a marvelous fizzy effect.

Afterwards the insisted on bottling up a sample of their marvelous to keep.  But it was purely for research purposes. I would definitely NOT want to venture a taste of this weird concoction. You never know what effects marvelous medicines can have on you. Better not to risk it.

Instead for a special treat, I set out a few sweet ingredients for the children to concoct their own sweet ‘medicine’. As it was an impromptu idea, I had to raid my fridge and pantry for whatever sweet liquids I could find: grape juice, rose cordial and lemon-lime cordial.

[If had time to put more preparation and planning into this activity, I would set out various freshly squeezed or blended fruit juices for the children to mix together their own healthy ‘medicine’].

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P.S. If you enjoyed this post, check out the previous ‘bringing books to life’ activity we did based on Roald Dahl’s ‘The BFG’ and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.