Mindfulness brings color to life.
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Fairy Glow Jars - an Overview
Fairy glow jars are definitely one of our favourite summertime crafts. These can be placed around your patio on a warm summer’s night or they can be used as a magical night light for your kids while camping or during a sleepover.
Regardless of how you use these beautiful fairy jars, your children will be wowed!
Fairy Glow jars are also super easy to make. All that you need are some clear mason jars, scissors, glitter, and glow sticks. You might already have some of these items in your house!
There is something absolutely mesmerizing about the way the glitter reflects the light that is emitted from the glow sticks.Â
Fairy glow jars can also provide your children with a few fun mindful moments.
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What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a technique that Western Psychology has borrowed from the buddhist tradition of mindful meditation. The Art of mindfulness resides in the ability to bring your attention to what is happening in the present moment; being aware of both your internal experiences as well as what you experience in the world around you.Â
While establishing a mindfulness practice with your kids takes repetition and consistency, the benefits for your children are worth the effort.Â
Many psychological studies have shown that there are measurable health benefits when children practice mindfulness on a regular basis. These benefits include improving their memory, attention skills, increasing compassion, and managing anxiety and depression.Â
To learn more about some of the amazing benefits of mindfulness for kids, check out this blog post!
When we teach mindfulness to kids, we give them the tools they need to build confidence, cope with stress, and relate to uncomfortable or challenging moments.
Practicing mindfulness encourages us to pay attention to our senses. Sensory jars, including these fairy glow jars, can be a great entry point for your kids to focus on their senses.
How to Use Your Fairy Glow Jars as a Mindfulness Tool
The beautiful radiating glow is enticing enough to hold the attention of your little ones but you can make a conscious effort to transform this activity into a few mindful minutes by asking your child to take 3 deep breaths, while holding their jar, and then focus on their senses.
Sensory experiences are any activities that help your child learn and develop a greater understanding of the world by using their five senses. These are:
- taste
- touch
- smell
- hearing
- sight
Everyday we experience our world through our senses. Our children use their senses to gain a greater understanding of how things work. Being aware of their senses can help develop connections in their brain and solidify the information that they are constantly receiving from their environment.
Our children can stimulate their visual and tactile senses with these gorgeous glow jars.Â
Focusing on our senses provides us with an opportunity to be mindful.
The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness.
Practicing mindfulness does not have to be a complicated experience. Jon Kabat-Zinn, reminds us that mindfulness is cultivated when we pay attention to what we are doing in the present moment; when we utilize our senses.
As your child holds their fairy glow jar, you can simply ask them to pay attention to or focus on the movement of the liquid in the jar.Â
You can prompt them with questions such as does the liquid move fast or slow? Then they can explore whether the liquid makes a sound as it moves through the jar, and describe whether the jar is heavy or light, rough or smooth.Â
It’s literally that simple! As you ask probing questions, your kids will probably chime in with their own observations. Engaging them in a conversation about what they are seeing, feeling, hearing etc. while observing their fairy glow jar, can provide them with a few moments of stillness; a few mindful moments. Most importantly they’ll have a blast watching the fluorescent liquid work its magic!
It’s easy and fun to infuse mindful moments into your art activities.
If you’re interested in learning about other meaningful art activities, designed to support the mental health of your kids, check out these other blog posts:
YouTube Video Tutorial
Here is our video tutorial that will show you how to make these stunning fairy glow jars.Â
Step by Step Tutorial with Images
Appropriate for Children Ages 4 and up (however children will require assistance cutting and handling the glow sticks once they’ve been cut)
Prep Time: 5 minutes
For today’s fairy glow jars kids you’ll need:
- Mason jars (we used 2 cup mason jars)
- Glow sticks (we used 3 of the thin necklaces of the same color in each jar – you can also use just 1 of the thicker glow sticks)
- Iridescent glitter (pixie dust)
- Silver glitter – optional
- Scissors
- Paper towel for wiping off your scissors after cutting the glow sticks or for wiping your work space
- Rubber gloves (optional)
- Scrap paper or plastic to cover your work space (optional)
Step 1 – Activate the Glow Sticks
- Bend/snap your glow sticks and shake them vigorously to ensure that they are fully activated.Â
Bending the glow stick breaks the glass container inside the stick, allowing the chemiluminescent compounds to mix and produce light.
Step 2 – Cut the Glow Sticks (Adults)
- Cut the tip of each glow stick. I recommend that you don’t cut the tip all the way off to prevent it from flying across the room.
- Bend back the end of the glow stick, using your scissors.
- Wipe off the end of your scissors using your paper towel.
Tip: I recommend only using 1 color per jar because not all of the glow stick colors mix well together.
Step 3 – Pour the Liquid out of the Glow Sticks (Adults)
- Depending on the type of glow stick you use, the liquid might pour out easily. If it doesn’t, just put the open end of your glow stick inside of your mason jar and wave it around until it’s empty.
Handle with Care: Remember the glow sticks have small pieces of glass on the inside of them and these glass pieces will also be in your mason jar. The glass pieces look like crystals in the glowing light but, if you prefer, you can use a sieve or strainer to capture the pieces (we left our glass pieces in).
Step 4 – Add Glitter
- Every fairy glow jar needs some pixie dust 😉 Add a generous amount of iridescent glitter to your mason jars.
Step 5 – Shake, Shake, Shake
- Give your fairy glow jar a good shake to mix the glitter and glow stick liquid.
Step 4 – Enjoy
- Step into a dark room or enjoy them outside at night and watch the magic unfold.
Tip: You can extend the length of the glow by keeping your glow jars in a cool place. You can increase the brightness by shining a black light on the glow jars.
We created blue, green, purple, yellow, and red fairy glow jars. They all glowed beautifully but the blue and purple looked very similar.Â
They glowed strongly for only about 3 hours but my daughters enjoyed every minute and immediately asked when we were making them again.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, creating these fairy glow jars will add a little magic to your day!
If you try these mystical fairy glow jars, please let me know! I’d love to add your creations to our gallery, so upload your photos or send them directly to me at: [email protected]. Thank you!
Don’t forget to download our free 15 page Mindfulness coloring book to help add a few mindful moments to your child’s day. Just click here or the image below!
18 thoughts on “Fairy Glow Jars – Mindfulness Activity for Kids”
These jars look like so much fun and easy to make! We’ve made glow jars before, but never thought to use them as a mindfulness tool. My kids took them outside as night lights to see the bugs. 🙂
That’s awesome! I should try that next time with my girls. They love bugs 🙂
So easy. Love this! Your YouTube video was so helpful and I love your mindfulness tips. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you! These actually look better in real life 🙂
These jars look awesome and a great thing to make with kids. I love the tips on how to bring mindfulness into the activity as well.
Thank you! They are super cool and engaging 🙂
I love this idea. Will definitely try it. Thank you for Sharing x
I’m so happy to hear that! Thanks
These are so cute! My kids would love them. How do you dispose of/clean them after they are done? I thought the inside of the glow sticks was toxic…. Or is it ok to just wash out? Thanks for sharing!
We have a few mason jars that we’ve designated as our fairy glow jars, so they are only used for this purpose. When these ones fade out, we just add new glow stick liquid to them. I wouldn’t recommend washing them out or reusing them for other purposes. Hope that helps! Thanks you 🙂
This is so cute, my kids will love it!
I’m glad you like it, hopefully your kids do too!
Including more sensory activities to enhance a child’s development is definitely crucial. Imagine a human being fully aware and present when going through life’s moments all because they grew in this from a young age in a fun way. Great!
I completely agree with you! Now that we know the scientifically proven benefits of sensory stimulation and mindfulness, it’s important to help foster this awareness in our children from a young age. Doing so can have a positive impact on so many areas of their life. Thanks for sharing!
This is such a clever idea! Mindfulness so important for children. I like how you mention to ask the child to focus or pay attention – a really simple instruction for them to understand. Marnie xx
Thank you! Paying attention is one of the primary steps of being mindful, which is a great starting point for most kids. I’m glad that you pointed that out!
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