Inspired by the excitement over the snowglobes we made earlier this year, I decided we should try another watery glitter project. This one has a different purpose than to capture a bit of whimsical winter in a bottle. Taking a cue from one of my family's favorite books, Peaceful Piggy Meditation, we decided to make special meditation jars with personality!

This was a simple happy project. First we read our Piggy Meditation book. We talked about how sometimes our minds just won't stop thinking or maybe we feel really sad or angry. We talked about how taking a few deep breaths and finding a calm place inside ourselves can help us to feel better. Then I showed the kids a Meditation Friend that I had made as an example for our project. I shook it up and explained that the glitter swirling around inside is like our thoughts when they are overwhelming or angry or sad. Next we took a few deep breaths while watching the glitter settle down in the jar, and while feeling our thoughts settle inside our minds. We played with the Meditation Friend pretending it was mad or just had too many thoughts by shaking it up and then we helped our friend calm down with some big, deep breaths.

After our discussion each kid made their own Meditation Friend.

What you need to make your own ~

Bottle or Jar with water tight lid (I used plastic water bottles to prevent breakage but glass would work fine as well.)
Water
Glitter or Glitter Glue (Glitter glue will make it take longer for the "thoughts" to settle down. Use warm water if you choose to use glue)
Googly Eyes
Decorations (We used peel and stick foamies)
Ribbon or Yarn
Fabric Scraps

Simply place water and glitter in the bottle and secure shut. Then have the child decorate their bottle to look like a face with googly eyes and any other materials you have on hand. I used peel and stick foamies because, well, they are easy! Then give the new friend a hat by securing a piece of cloth on top of the bottle with ribbon or yarn. Easy Peasy!

In the days following this project, I had a number of the students who made these tell me that they used it when they felt sad or lonely or mad and, that it helped! Yeah!

Please Note: This activity was based on an activity at the end of this amazing, fun book. My six-year-old loves this book. We re-read it often when she is going through a hard time in her life and it seems to really speak to her.

Peaceful Piggy Meditation

Shared On: Kid Lit Blog Hop

Art inspired by Aromatherapy and Emotional Awareness with Children

Breathe deep and what do you feel? Taking a slow deep breath relaxes mind and body bringing clarity and calming anxiety. Now take a deep breath of a high quality aromatic essential oil and all the therapeutic benefits of the oil are added to the experience. Um, I am feeling more relaxed just thinking about it!

We conducted our own little experiment to see how different essential oils made us feel. Seated in a circle on the floor I passed around smell sticks I had made from card stock. Each stick had a number on it which corresponded to my list of essential oils. I did this because I didn't want the kids to know what oil they were smelling but then I realized, silly me, they can't read yet! I got a good chuckle at myself for that one. Anyways, we passed around the sticks one at a time having fun sniffing. After everyone had their fill of smelling each stick, we tried to figure out how what we had smelled made us feel. We took the smell stick and placed it on a wheel I had drawn with the emotions calm, happy and refreshed.

It was so very cute to watch the kids smelling and feeling. When we passed around the stick with orange on it the kids got giggly and wiggly. We decided that orange made us happy! Lavender produced a group of peaceful, relaxed and quiet kids; still where they sat and reflective. We decided that lavender was a mix between refreshed and calm, but "mostly calm." We also investigated cedarwood, spearmint, cardamon and rosemary.

Here is a chart of our results:

Lavender: calmingly refreshed
Orange: happy
Spearmint: happy and refreshed
Cardamon: calm
Cedarwood: very, very calm
Rosemary: refreshed

After all of our sniffing and feeling was done, I asked the kids to each choose their very favorite oil to create a piece of art work with.

Can you guess what oil was the most popular?

"Happy!"

"Orange!"

Isn't it wonderful how children just want to be happy? What a gift it is to be around such joy. A few kids wanted lavender and one chose cedarwood. Apparently, none of them needed to be refreshed!

Next I gave them piece of paper with a drop of their chosen oil in the corner. I asked them to create a piece of art work with the emotion and smell as their inspiration.

The kids were very creative and had a blast!

Thanks to 2flowerslearning for the great post inspiration for this fun class!

Shared on: Kid's Co-op