"Calm" Jar

This week I decided to try a craft that I've heard other friends have done and enjoyed. We all saw it on Pinterest and thought it sounded like a great idea. The idea is this: make a jar full of glitter and, when your child goes on time-out, shake the jar up and have them watch the glitter settle to the bottom. Once it's all settled, the time out is over and, ideally, watching the glitter will have helped your child calm down and relax. Kaylie's been particularly difficult during time-outs lately (wanting to talk to us the whole time or crying at ridiculous volumes) so this really appealed to me.

What You Need:

*Jar (plastic is recommended)

*Fine glitter

*Glitter glue

*Hot water

Fill the jar with the hot water and add 1TB of glitter glue for every cup of water you add. Pour in the glue, put the lid back on, and shake well. If you want to make it more fancy, allow your child to decorate the outside of the jar with stickers.

Tips:

If you want the jar to be used as your method for timing time-outs, I would recommend using a larger jar. If you just want to use it as a calming method during time-outs, it doesn't matter what size jar you use. (I decided to use it during time-outs, but not as the timer because if I did that her time-outs would be less than a minute long. Something I'm sure she would be fine with, but wouldn't really be much of a consequence.) Do not do what I did and let your child decorate the outside with glitter glue. It was a huge mess and, even though she enjoyed it, it ended up looking awful and being wet and sticky. We started out with a smaller jar, moved to a bigger container and, after Kaylie mucked it all up with glitter glue, we went back to the smaller jar and just used stickers.

<--Big Jar Small Jar-->

The Verdict:

I really didn't enjoy doing this craft. I think I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd just stuck with the original jar I'd chosen and not let Kaylie decorate with the glitter glue in the first place. It was just such a mess and started to stress me out. However, even though this wasn't my favorite craft, Kaylie had a really good time doing it. She loved to pour the glitter and play with the glue, and she had just as much fun decorating with stickers as she did with the glue. So I think that what I'd say is this: if you don't over-complicate it like I did, it's a fun and fairly simple craft, and your child will probably enjoyed it. Not the most fun for the parent necessarily, but I always love to see Kaylie having fun, so that was a plus. We'll see what happens the first time we use it during a time-out.

Update: I gave it to her during a time-out this morning while she was flipping out and it calmed her down immediately. I think I'm going to change it so that it only has one color in it so that she can see the glitter better, but it seems to be doing it's job already.

P.S. In case you're wondering, yes. It's always more fun doing crafts in a princess dress. :)