Oh Me of Little Faith

Last night was the first night of Vacation Bible School, and I confess I had been feeling anxiety.  We are trying new crafts--"cave slime" made from glue and borax and "soda-lightful bubbles" with trays of baking soda and colored vinegar.  I am anxious about how it will all work.  I have a back up plan--watercolor paints.  I usually try new projects, but they're usually activities that I've done with adults, and so my anxiety is about how kids will react--not about my inability to visualize the process or my ability to visualize disasters.

So I went to church last night with no real sense of how it would work.  I mixed food color into the vinegar, which I had poured into small bottles.  I spread newspaper across the tables.

What is the purpose of this project?  We talked about how faith in Jesus gave us hope, and hope is a bubbly thing.  Then I squirted the colored vinegar on the baking soda, and we watched it fizz.  Then everyone got their own trays and got to play--part science project, part art.

The kids delighted in the colors, which they mixed.  Some kids liked a soupy mixture, while others tried to make clay.  As the colors swirled and sizzled, we talked about what it looked like:  "You created a planet!"  Some kids were careful, while others dove right in, leaving their hands deeply colored in purples and greens.  Some kids managed to get baking soda all over themselves.  I wonder what their parents thought of it all.

I had friends who cycled through the room, who reminded me that I was worried that kids would get bored.  We laughed at my lack of faith.  Most of these kids would have kept concocting "pictures" until we ran out of baking soda and colored vinegar.

Now it's on to cave goo--and then we're back to more traditional crafts (traditional to me, that is).  Pictures to come later.