Gloop has always fascinated me because of its ability to change from a runny sticky consistency to hard concrete once force is applied. When I saw a big container of corn flour under the sink I got as excited as Winnie-the-Pooh when he sees honey.
My excitement got passed on to my daughter and she started singing with me, “gloop, gloop, we gonna make some gloop.”
With gloop, size does matter, so that’s why I took out the huge water trough. Yes, I used all the corn flour and left Playcentre without fingerpaint for a few days but it was definitely
worth it!
First, we put corn flour into the trough, and then used the hose to add water. The boys loved it as they pretended to be firemen. Then I brought out some eye-droppers full of dyes
for the children to add to the mixture. Amazingly, the colours remained partially separated and didn’t turn into a giant pool of brown mud.
I offered the kids some spoons to play with but they all preferred to use their hands. I suggested they scrape some gloop from the bottom of the trough, look at the layers that
had formed along with the different colours it had made and lift it high in the air to watch the mixture slither through their fingers.
Now came the really fun part. When it was time for clean up the gloop showed another unexpected quality. It didn’t want to flow freely from the trough when tipped up but stuck
to the bottom! I got some spatulas and started scraping it from the trough. In no time at all I was joined by six pairs of little hands armed with spatulas, spades, spoons and brushes
helping me bang, bash, scratch and scrape the gloop away. It was fantastic fun.
Natalia Kim, Howick Playcentre