Calming Bottles and Sensory Bottles

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These Calming Bottles and Sensory Bottles are so simple to make. You can make them yourself in a few minutes or have a toddler/preschooler help with the process. We made these when my kids were younger and they often helped to calm a stressful situation.

SENSORY BOTTLES

For a younger child, these glitter jars make a great sensory toy. Kids get enthralled watching the glitter swirl around. If your kids are a little older, the bottles can be used in conjunction with a time out or cooling off period. The child simply shakes the bottle up and watches all of the glitter fall to the bottom. This takes approximately 2 1/2 minutes to occur.

HOW TO MAKE CALMING JARS

You will need:

16 oz water bottle with water or you can use these sensory bottles
Glitter glue (we bought ours in a 3 pack at the dollar store – each bottle is 3oz)
Glitter
Jewels
Glue gun

This first part should be done by an adult. You will want to be sure anytime you are using small objects that you supervise your child carefully and keep these away from kids who are likely to put things in their mouths.

Open up your water bottle and pour out a small amount, equal to a sip of water. If the bottle is full it will overflow when you start to add the glitter glue. You can see in the photo above that mine is not quite filled to the top.

Now it’s time for the kids to have some fun creating their glitter sensory bottles. Give your child an open bottle of water and some glitter glue. Have them start squeezing the glitter glue into the bottle.

You will want to use at least 3/4 of a 3oz bottle of glitter glue. This is a great fine motor activity for kids as they use their small hand muscles to squeeze all the glitter glue out.

When your child is done squeezing the glue into the bottle, they can choose a color of loose glitter to add to the bottle. Dad helped with this step as it can get messy. Next, have kids add the jewels.

What follows was my kids’ favorite part – shaking up the bottle. My daughter shook up, down, sideways and every which way.

When you first start shaking, the glitter glue with break into small clumps. But steady, vigorous shaking will break up the clumps and mix the colors of glitter.

The final step in the process is to hot glue the cap to the bottle so your child will not be able to open it up. This is an adults only step. Even with the cap glued on the bottle, you should still supervise your child when they are using it. Some kids out there seem to possess super human strength!

Calming bottles - these sensory bottles are great for little ones to explore and for preschoolers to use during a cooling off period.

These calming bottles make great a mindfulness jar. As kids watch the glitter settle they are practicing being in the present moment. I hope your kids enjoy these as much as mine did back in the day!

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If you liked these calming bottles, check out:

10 Ways to Stop a Tantrum