Glitter Calm Down Bottle | Still Playing School

Glitter Calm Down Bottle

Calm Down Bottles made with glitter are soothing, inexpensive, and fun to make! Here are the steps to make a calming glitter sensory bottle as well as the cost break down and recommendations on the best supplies to use.



This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon from this page and purchase anything, we will get a small profit for referring you without any additional cost to you!

I have made these calming bottles and jars with kids of all ages using a variety of recipes so for this version I wanted to see how economical we could be using what we had at home. 

We began with a smooth sided water bottle. Away from the children, I removed the label and used Goo Gone to get rid of the sticky residue. I used nail polish remover to take off the stamped on date. I washed the bottle in hot soapy water. So far the project cost us nothing because we had these things on hand!


We started with Elmer's Glitter Glue in pink, of course. We only used a bit of the $3 bottle. Squeezing in the glue was great fine motor work for E's hands!


She loved creating this project herself! Next we added $1 glitter glue from Target. If you wanted to make your calm down bottle even more inexpensive you could strictly use glitter glue from the dollar store. 


We wanted a mix of glitter colors so we added in silver and a darker pink. Choosing the colors allows your child to have ownership over their glitter sensory bottle. They picked out the supplies and they made it!


Pour in very warm water. The brand name glue mixed up well in the water with just some shaking but the cheaper glitter glue remained a bit clumpy. If you are only using $1 glitter glue I recommend stirring the water into mixing bowl with the glue first using a spoon to break up all the bits and then pouring the whole glittery mixture into your jar.



Mix, shake, and dance like crazy! It's a good thing we used a plastic bottle just in case it gets dropped!



My daughter watched the glitter settle. It's so mesmerizing that I could watch it all day myself! It worked perfectly with these simple ingredients, swirling then settling in a few minutes. 


She decided she wanted her bottle to be more "pinkish purple" so she asked if we could add food coloring. We also added more glitter because we are glitter addicts. I used fine glitter so it swirls and settles a bit differently than the larger glitter from the glue. 



When the bottle color was the exact shade of pinkish purple that we wanted I used a few drops of super glue on the lid. Since we had the super glue, Goo Gone, nail polish remover, and water bottle on hand, you could make a $1 version with the store brand glitter glue or a $3 version using Elmer's! Other optional supplies include fine glitter and food coloring.

Our calm down bottle sits in our kitchen window to be used as my friend so eloquently explains as a way to get children in touch with their emotions in a focused way. She creates their meditation jars with different ingredients so you will want to check out her version as well!

For all of our play based learning activities please follow Still Playing School on FacebookPinterestGoogle+Instagram, & Twitter!

2 comments :