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Yay gloop time!

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In the Te Tipu room at BestStart MacDonald Street, gloop is one of our favourite activities. The children love to get involved in the process of mixing the cornflour with water and especially love adding some colour to the gloop mixture. 

Gloop play is part of Messy play which is one of BestStart’s 16 areas of play. Messy play is relaxing and soothing and can bring children to an awareness of being calm and relaxed. Feeling calm helps children to have a clearer mind which aids positive thinking, concentration, memory and decision making. Relaxation slows our heart rate, reduces our blood pressure and relieves tension. 

Messy play solutions such as fingerpaint, slime and gloop are usually setup outside. Teachers often talk with children about what they notice about the substance. Sometimes resources like cups, jugs and spoons are added to the mixtures. 

Children develop their hand-eye coordination, as they scoop, pour, mix and measure the mixtures.  

Children often create stories related to the mixture or teachers might encourage children to move through the mixture while chanting a rhyme or singing. It’s a great creative outlet as they make up stories, practicing their communication and cooperation skills. 

Children love to explore the properties of solutions – thicknesses of liquids, textures, how well the substance pours or moves are all things children observe and comment on. 

Teachers often show children how the texture can change by, for example, adding more water to make it runnier or stickier. This helps children learn what happens when substances combine – when I add more water the liquid is thinner and pours more easily. When I combine colours the colour changes. This is the beginning of looking at changes in substances which is linked to science (material world) learning. 

Teachers extend children’s vocabulary by adding words to what the children are noticing in their play – mixing, thick and thin liquids, texture words like smooth, lumpy, slimy, cold, warm, soft or sticky and for older pre-schoolers that love words try viscosity (how fast or slow the liquid pours), miscible (can mix with another liquid), immiscible (can’t mix with another liquid e.g. water and oil). Speaking to children informally about what they are experiencing at the time of their exploration is the best way to extend their vocabulary. 

Children develop their creativity through pretend play as they explore a substance like finger paint or slime and add resources like cups and jugs or animals and sticks. In older children, this often leads to storytelling with each other. 

Maths concepts are also introduced as children learn about pouring the mixture from one container to another – adults can talk to them about full, half full, some, more, little or big. This is a great way for children to learn about aspects measurement.