In South Kona, on the Big Island, Powerful Tools for Caregivers- Grandfamilies, kicked off their first cohort in June 2017. Three grandmothers or “tutus” as we say in Hawai’i participated in GRANDcares program.
Melony Tavares, a tutu from Big Island brought her three grandkids to one of the classes. During the classes for grandparents, there are planned 4-H activity for the grandchildren. An aspiring elementary school teacher, Kili Kunitomo, supervised the activity. Kili’s planned activity for the grandchildren was to make slime. This slime consisted of glue, contact solution, baking soda, and food coloring.
Making slime, is considered “messy play”, and messy play has many developmental benefits for children. Children learn and develop through many types of play, but especially through unstructured and exploratory play. Through this kind of activity, children are able explore using their senses and engage their natural curiosity.
When Melony joined the class the following week, she reported that her grandson went home at the end of the previous class beaming with excitement. “He felt proud of all the batches of slime he had made,” Melony said. In the week to come, her nine year old grandson saved up all his allowance and bought all the materials to make the slime in bulk. This included the ingredients and small containers, price tags, and labels. He put together individual slime containers, took them to school, and sold them to his friends. He made a profit and is one of GRANDcares youngest aspiring entrepreneurs!
Melony’s fellow tutus who attended classes said they really enjoyed the class curriculum, while their grandkids enjoyed fun, supervised play! Mostly, they stated that they really enjoyed “getting to know each other”.
A special thank you to the Greenwell Family Development Center for providing a beautiful setting for our grandfamilies and our program.
By: Kylie Brown, Site Assistant, Maui Site 2, Big Island
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