Avoiding Chaos with Mindfulness Jars

Tips and tricks for making mindfulness jars in a collaborative classroom.

Buy packs of bottled water.

I am not an advocate for buying bottled water and most definitely support the reuse of jars. However, I have had a few troubles with getting children to bring in their own jars from home. One is the lack of lids and another jars which often happen to be too small. Many children regularly don’t bring in any jars which in a collaborative classroom is usually around twenty percent. That’s quite a few jars to source. So far using bottled water packs in a collaborative setting for making mindfulness ‘jars’ has worked brilliantly because preparation is minimised and the bottles are already full with water!

I have found that the most effective way of adding to the ‘jars’ is in stations. (Eg. The food colour or dye table, the glue table and the glitter table.)

Have the children name their own bottles with vivid before opening the sealed lids.

When bottles are damp they do not take to being written on very well. When the children name their own bottle beforehand this is a great opportunity for them to chat and share the Vivids on the mat. It also means that their arrival at the stations is naturally staggered. They don’t all go rushing up to the stations at once.

Metallic paint can easily be sourced from dollar stores. Adding two teaspoons to a jar helps to thicken the water. The most beneficial aspect is that the glitter particles in the metallic paint take over two to three minutes to settle allowing the children to watch the different weights of glitter settle at different times.

What I usually add to our jars: stars, sequins, heavy glitter (larger uneven flakes) fine glitter, metallic poster paint.

Adding glue is a great way to slow down the settling of glitter and papier-mache paste is an easy option. Have an ice-cream container made up and ready at the ‘glue station’ two teaspoons of thick paste works well. (Papier-mache paste is not the best option and after a month or less it will lose its viscosity. It is however the cheapest and most available option.)

A lovely adaption to a mindfulness jar is a jellyfish jar.

In the classroom I have jars along the window sill which look lovely when the light shines through however they also offer a mindful reminder to both myself and the children and are accessible for the children to use when they need to. I have made a few jellyfish jars which work in a similar way.

The link to making a jellyfish jar can be found here:
http://themetapicture.com/homemade-plastic-jellyfish/