Gak!

We were in a concocting mood, and stumbled on the recipe for "gak" or "elmer's slime", which just happened to require two ingredients we had on hand -- 225 ml of PVA glue (Elmer's Glue-all) and 1 tsp. of borax. Actually, we have about 1000 tsp. of borax on hand, but we only needed one. We mixed the glue with an equal amount of warm water, added some food colouring and then stirred in a solution of 1 tsp. of borax in 125 ml of warm water. Voilà, non-Newtonian fluid! It became everything from masks to clothing to balls, tongues, snakes, pianos, 'octopus leather' and 'inflated goatskins'. The kids really enjoyed playing with it during readaloud time. It's amazing stuff. Packed into a large ball, it can be bounced or broken in halves. Gently encouraged, by gravity or fingers, it becomes an amazing fluid.