Slime Mould Kit – Sleeping Blob, Petri Dish and Agar

How the Physarum polycephalum slime mould wakes up, in two steps

The slime mould kit follows the two steps printed on its instructions. The first is building the blob's home. Everything that will touch the blob is disinfected with 70 to 90% alcohol. The dose of agar goes into 200 ml of water, and the mixture heats for 2 minutes in a small saucepan until it has fully dissolved. Poured into the Petri dish, lid closed, the agar cools and sets. Before going further, you check at room temperature that it has the texture of a jelly.

The second step is the one your child waits for. With the disinfected tweezers, they lift the sclerotium, the dry and dormant form of the blob, and lay it in the centre of the dish. A drop of water moistens it, then a few oat flakes go down around it. Waking takes about 24 hours, sometimes only a few hours. The dry fragment then becomes a bright yellow layer that stretches out in fine veins towards the oats.

Looking after Physarum polycephalum as a pet, one oat flake at a time

The first thing this kit asks of a child is to watch. From one day to the next, they notice where the blob has moved and which flake it has covered. What is Physarum polycephalum? The back of the box answers with a riddle: it is a single cell, with no eyes, no mouth and no brain, and yet it is capable of memory and learning. It makes for an educational activity that starts from a question rather than a lesson, and the question keeps coming back each time the lid is lifted.

The second thing is care. Picking up the sclerotium with the tweezers without crushing it takes a steady hand, and it is the child who adds fresh flakes when the blob has covered the last ones. Looking after a living thing is one of the Montessori practical life activities, and here the result of that care shows directly in the dish.

Your first culture: who does what

The agar goes through heat and alcohol, so preparing it is the adult's job. Read the slime mould kit's instructions together first, then hand your child the disinfected tweezers and the bag of oat flakes. They place the blob, add the water drop and choose where the flakes go.

The usual mistake is opening the dish again and again to check. Every opening works against the care you took to disinfect everything, so agree on one look a day, lid on, and save the feeding for when the oats are covered.

When the blob is well awake, try a variation: put flakes at two opposite edges of the dish and note each day which way it heads. A quick drawing at every observation makes the changes visible, and a week of sketches tells the story better than memory does.

As your child grows, and keeping the sclerotium dormant

At first, your child watches and drops in the flakes. Later, they prepare the dish themselves under an adult's eye and check the next morning whether what they predicted actually happened.

Keep the blob's bag closed until you are ready to wake it: according to the instructions, the sclerotium can wait for one to two years in this dry state, which is the resting stage of the Physarum polycephalum life cycle. Disinfect the tweezers and the dish with alcohol before each contact with the blob. If your child keeps drawings from the waking to the spreading network, they end up with their own record of part of the life cycle of Physarum polycephalum.

How this kit differs from other science toys

Most children's science toys show a reaction or a model; this one is alive, and it changes whether anyone is looking or not. The slime mould kit supplies the essentials: the blob itself, the agar to prepare, its food and the tweezers. You only need water, a small saucepan and alcohol for disinfecting.

You will recognise this kit by its labelled bags, marked "Blob", "Agar agar" and "Miam" (French for "yum"), and its illustrated fold-out instructions. For a child who likes making the things they use, our craft kits carry on the same pleasure. Next to the Montessori materials your child handles every day, it brings something rare into a bedroom: a living thing that changes before their eyes.

Questions parents ask

How do you wake up a slime mould?

Place the sclerotium in the centre of the agar with the disinfected tweezers, moisten it with a drop of water and scatter a few oat flakes around it. It takes about 24 hours to wake, sometimes only a few hours.

What does a slime mould eat?

The kit provides oat flakes, in the bag labelled "Miam". To feed the blob, set a few flakes near it: it spreads towards them and covers them.

How long can the sclerotium stay dormant?

The sclerotium is the blob's dry, dormant form. According to the instructions, it can wait one to two years before coming back to life.

What is in the slime mould kit?

One sclerotium (the sleeping blob), one Petri dish, agar to make the jelly, oat flakes, one pair of tweezers and the instructions.

Specifications

• Brand: Pamela Loops
• Contents: 1 sclerotium (dormant blob), 1 Petri dish, agar, oat flakes, 1 pair of tweezers, 1 instruction leaflet
• Instructions in 2 steps: prepare the blob's home, then wake the blob
• You will also need: water, a small saucepan, 70 to 90% alcohol for disinfecting
• 2-year guarantee