Slime and Wonder

Ugh! Look at that slippery slime!

As parents, do you have this experience of your children bringing you the most bizarre things with the excitement in their eyes, but you only see… a slime? And for sure, you are not about to touch it!

We, adults, built many rules in our heads. Do not do this, it will make your clothes dirty. Do not touch that, it looks disgusting. And this, this is scary!

But children still have their fresh new view of the world, ready to explore and discover! They do not understand why their dad bought that can of slime for them but refuse to play with it himself!

Recently, the weather was so beautiful so during our Backyard programs we had many families who stopped at the river to enjoy some water play. We have prepared different activities, such as fish catching or building a cool structure of tubes under the water.

But sometimes, we just try too hard! :)

One girl discovered the river weed that day. At first, she was walking around it in circles, observing how it moves under the water. One of our instructors gave her a bucket and after few minutes, she started to collect the river weed.

Of course, our activities could not compete with the slime weed!

She saw the weed as something new and fascinating. Jen, our other instructor, showed her that if she squeezes the water out of it, it is almost like hair. Her parents seemed not too happy about the idea of now growing a river weed in their bathroom, but the kid was super happy to play with the weed.

In the end, she had a bucket full of it.

She just played with a river weed, it may seem. But in fact, she learned a lot about the water that day. About how much this plant can keep water and how it behaves in the air. She learned about not being scared of things that are different from what she is used to seeing. And she learned that we can understand by observing things, and often the fear will just go away after we learn more about the topic.

“Do you want to bring this home?” we asked her, as the session ended.

She left the bucket on the shore (so of course we played with it later!) and we were sure we know what she will be up to next time when she visits our campus.