Absorb or repel?

Today we read Mudpuddle by Robert Munsch.  The little girl kept getting covered all over with mud!!! She had a good idea because she decided to put on a rain coat to keep the wet sticky mud from soaking into her nice clean clothes. We did an experiment to see if water would soak in ( absorb) or if the rubber in a rain coat would repel the water (and mud)!  We found out the rubber raincoat repelled the water! Tomorrow we are going to test out other materials.  You could try some at home.  We wondered if our mitts absorbed or repelled water.... We will have to investigate that too!