How to Make Calm Down Jars

I have been wanting to make these for FOREVER and I finally did it. Calm down bottles can be used for all kinds of things in the classroom and...let's face it.... they are just really cool. If a student needs to calm down or just have a quiet moment to themselves all you do is shake it up and watch the glitter fall. I'm in love with them!  I followed directions from Little Bins for Little Hands and did a little experimenting on my own. I found that you can't really go wrong! 

I started with some Elmer's glitter glue, small plastic Voss water bottles, fine glitter, and some food coloring. 

You mix the ingredients in a bowl (I used a whisk) and then pour them into the bottle. It worked best when I added hot water. This helped mix in all of the glue.  Here is a run down of what's in each bottle: 

• Red: A lot of glitter glue (half of the bottle), red food coloring, and some fine glitter (I used pink because they didn't have red in the set I bought).  In this bottle the glitter floats FOREVER! It would be a good calm down bottle for someone that needed a little extra time. 
• Purple: A little bit of glitter glue (a third of the bottle), red & blue food coloring, silver fine glitter. This one takes a couple of minutes to all fall down. 
• Blue: A tiny bit of glitter glue, fine glitter and some really thick silver glitter. This one is fun to watch the thick glitter fall quickly from one end to the other. 
• Clear (the one on the end). This one I just dumped some glitter in. It falls very quickly (in like a minute) so it would be a good one minute timer. 

Here they are after a good shake. 

That's it! They were really fun to put together and play with. I also put some together with alphabet letters for students to use in our alphabet centers at the beginning of the year.

Alphabet Beads for alphabet centers! 

UPDATE: My cool down bottles are holding up really well! I made these 2 years ago and they are still perfect (I was afraid the water would get cloudy inside). They were also super successful. They work for my cryers on the first day, upset buddies on bad days, and just sad kiddos on gloomy days. The alphabet one is a big hit at centers too.