Lego calm down jars

I recently saw this blog entry with instructions for making a Lego calm down jar. The idea really appealed to me, as a parent with a child on the autistic spectrum.

I had a quick scout around the internet, to see if I could find something with UK-specific recommendations for materials. I couldn’t find anything, although that’s not to say there isn’t anything out there, just that I didn’t have the time to locate anything.

Anyway, Lemon Lime Adventures’ instructions were great, and we had fun making our calm down jars! However, our jars took a bit of fiddling to get right.

This was the result of the first attempt:

Here are some hints and tips from our experience:

• I couldn’t get hold of the jars in the UK, but we found some brilliant – and inexpensive – bottles from UK supplier, Ideon. We opted for these ones, with the natural lids. The advantage of buying these is as they’re brand new bottles, the tops still have their seals. I was contemplating supergluing the lids on, but with the sealed bottle tops I haven’t had to… Yet…
• All other supplies I bought from Hobbycraft, and our boys particularly liked the glitter glue we found, as it was one with stars in!
• Ensure the glitter glue fills absolutely not more than 1/4 of the bottle. Our first attempt contained too much of everything (apart from water; could have done with more of that!), so the mix was too thick to see the Lego mini figure, and we weren’t able to watch it settle. When I poured some of the mix out into another bottle, and topped up with warm water, the ratio of glitter glue:glitter:food colouring:water was much better!
• You may need to go easy with the glitter! Our glitter glue was very glittery and the whole mix probably could have done without any additional glitter.
• If you’re using a gel food colour, usual rules apply; add just a tiny bit, otherwise your liquid will be too dark to see much other than sparkles!

After modification:

These were a lot of fun to make, not too fiddly for our six year old to have a go at, and are very calming to look at and enjoyable to shake for both our six year old and two year old. And, if I’m being completely honest, I rather like them, too!

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