While Miss G and I have put together and enjoyed all kinds of sensory bins, we’ve never actually made sensory jars or bottles of any sort. Although I wasn’t sure that Grae would like them as much her usual sensory bins due to their more ‘hands off’ nature, I decided we’d whip up a few today and give them a try.
In order to make the most of them, I knew I wanted Gracen to be involved in the putting the sensory jars together. I gathered up a bunch of materials while she napped and set them out as a little surprise for when she woke (we also ended up using some shampoo on a whim during the activity). Since I had the time and the paint on hand, I chose to give our jar lids a quick coat of silver spray, but it isn’t necessary.
When Grae woke up, she was excited to started. She pretty much led the way, and I just made sure we had some water and one of the thicker liquids (baby oil, cooking oil, or bubble bath) in each jar. One thing was for certain – there needed to be glitter in every jar. No exceptions there. The other thing I found interesting was that Miss G automatically colour coordinated the glitter with the coloured water (hmmm… wonder where she gets these things from??)
This part of the activity was really fun. It reminded me of when I was little and mixing up potions and concoctions in the kitchen seemed like the best thing in the whole world. (It kind of still felt like that… Maybe some things never change?)
Here are Grae’s creations:
(The blue one is the exact same combination as this one, but with blue water and glitter.)
When Grae declared her jars done, I ran a thick strip of hot glue around the inside of each of the lids, then quickly screwed them on as tight as I could. Once they’d cooled, I tried my darndest to unscrew one of the lids, and couldn’t, so I decided they were good to go.
We were headed out into the backyard to splash in the pool, so along the sensory jars came. Gracen really liked shaking them up and watching “the sparkles dance”.
Here’s a look at the jars just after shaking them. Photos don’t do them justice, but they’re quite mesmerizing actually… calming even, so I can see why parents who use time outs would find these to be a helpful time out ‘tool’.
While sensory jars may not bring about as much play as sensory bins do (for Miss G at least), they’re a great addition to our collection of sensory goodies and will be finding a Grae-friendly spot in our house as soon as she’s had a few good days with them in her bedroom.
♥
Not to mention, another beautiful piece of art to add to her scrapbook. ☺
Besides the homemade instruments, her xylophone, jingle bells, train whistle, rhythm sticks, egg shakers, and a couple of spoons were included.
While this wasn’t a sensory station she stayed engaged in for long periods of time, we left it out all day, music on, and she came back to it again and again, shaking or tapping her heart out for a couple of minutes at a time. 
First we gathered our materials… A few big rocks we found around the yard (washed and dried), some acrylic paint (kids’ washable paint works too but the designs disappear with rain), a few paint brushes, and an old towel.
Gracen thought it was pretty special that she had her very own painting station just like Mama. She’d paint a rock, then move it to the edge of the towel to dry, and then paint another. And when the tops were dry, she flipped them over and painted the bottoms.
Fresh out of rocks but still wanting to paint, I gave her a cement block we had lying around.
And after it was painted in pastels, it was time for a 
These are our little artist’s finished pieces.
After they were completely dry, we found special little places around the yard to tuck them in. With these little surprises hiding around the yard, maybe weeding won’t be so daunting…
All you need is some plain dinnerware, a Sharpie or two, and in our case, some tape, and a pair of scissors.
Because we chose to decorate bowls, I wanted to tape off the inside of the bowl, where the food goes. Some may say that the Sharpie is sealed in by the end of the process, but something just doesn’t seem right about putting Grae’s food on top of permanent marker. Plus, I think having just the rim decorated looks cute. Painter’s tape would have been the obvious choice here, but since I didn’t have any lying around, we made do with packaging tape and it worked just fine.
Grae got started drawing right away. I explained that we weren’t drawing in the middle of the bowl and that we were just decorating around the edge, and that’s exactly what she did (therefore the tape was pretty much unnecessary, but hey, you never know). 
When I asked Gracen what I should draw on my dish, her immediate response was, “Apple!” I ran with that idea, and since she’s been so interested in colours for the past couple of months, I got started on a little colours of the rainbow theme of sorts.
Gracen drew and drew and drew and never did I have to encourage her to keep going, choose a new colour, or fill in a blank space. She was having so much fun and was so thrilled about the fact that she was using Mama’s ‘special’ markers that she had more than enough motivation for over an hour’s worth of drawing.
Of course, in that hour, she stopped to come over and admire my dish several times. She’d look with big eyes, then nod her head with a slow, enthusiastic “Yaaaaaaa…” and a sweet little smile on her face, in obvious approval. Then she’d go on to point out the colours and pictures she saw {and shared those she wanted to see in the very near future – my apple, tree, birdie, and banana were all ideas she offered}.
The finishing touch was to happily sprinkle her entire rim with dots of different colours. She’d stop a moment, glance at it sideways, then pick up another Sharpie and add more. This continued again and again until one time she took that same sideways glance, then very nonchalantly announced “All done”. And that was that.
Before we could get it in the house to cure in the oven, she wanted to put her new dish to use, so she carefully browsed through the garden for a handful of ripe strawberries and a sprig of mint.
With her snack gone in less than a minute (yes, she shoved that entire thing of mint in her mouth and chowed down on it like the 
One final touch to add – our names, the year, and for Grae, her bright green signature.
And then into the oven they went. In attempt to “bake the marker on better”, I amped up the heat to 400 and left the dishes in for 45 minutes, despite the general recommendation of baking them at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Bad idea. Although Miss G’s came out fine, my lighter colours really, really faded, some to the point of becoming nearly invisible. Learn from my mistake. The good news is that there’s an easy fix for mistakes such as mine. Just simply redraw your design and then pop it back in the oven for another 30 minutes at 300. 
We let our bowls cool, gave them a good {hand} wash, and used them for dinner. I did try washing them (okay, maybe I even scrubbed a little bit), and so far, so good. The designs still look exactly as they did, and I’m hoping they stay that way for a while at least.
It was a breeze to set up. We gathered up a few materials we had around the house – a bowl, magnets, scissors, embroidery floss (any string would do), a large paperclip, and a piece of drift wood from Gracen’s 
These alphabet magnets, made by Gracen’s 
WIth our fishing rod built and our pond freshly-stocked with fish, we were ready to go.
Caught one!
After she’d fished standing up for a while, she decided to try fishing while sitting down. Looping the line around the rod a couple of times made this a much more manageable task.
Caught another.
Gracen thought this activity was a lot of fun. As she pulled the magnets out of the pond, she’d remove them from the paperclip, announce their colour (older kids could do colours and letters), and add them to her caught pile (often giving herself an enthusiastic clap afterwards). She enjoyed it so much, in fact, that she insisted that it stay in her room until her Papa returned home from work so she could show him. And that’s exactly what she did. 
With an hour or so to spare this morning and a little drizzle falling from the sky, we decided it was a good time to bring out the supplies. We set up shop out on Grandma Sue’s patio and let the kiddos dive in.
Grae was an old pro. She very seriously collected paint on her brush and stroked it onto her house, trying to fill in all of the spaces.
Korbin had a plan. Each side would be a separate colour. And when he had finished that task, he brushed some white over top to “make it look cooler”.
Miss Kins had never painted before, and although she dived in eagerly, she wasn’t thrilled about getting paint on herself. She painted a little bit of the roof, and then called it quits.
Chay didn’t join us immediately, but once he saw what was going on, he was up at the table in no time and was all about painting the inside of his house.
