Glitter Jars

I've seen these jars all over Pinterest the last couple of months or so, sometimes called "mind jars" and sometimes called "calm-down jars", and thought they might be a fun craft to make with the girls.  (Okay, okay, so I'm totally dating myself here, but they remind me of the plastic glitter wands from the 80s and I really wanted to make one for myself.)   Basically, mind jars are a tool to help kids, or anyone, when they feel overwhelmed.  They are clear jars (either glass or plastic) that are filled with a solution of liquid and glitter.   The glitter represents all the troublesome thoughts that are creating the stress.  They are shaken to mix up the glitter and as the glitter settles to the bottom, you are supposed to visualize the things that are troubling to you also settling.

A note about Pinterest: when I pin things on Pinterest, I really try to click through to make sure that I'm linking to the original post so that the original blogger gets the credit (although sometimes it is hard).  

As far as I can tell, the post Meditating with Children on "Still Life with Circles", is the first post I can find about the jars.  It refers to the book, Moody Cow Meditates that has a recipe for the jars in the back.  There are also a couple of lovely, later posts on Mind Jars and Calm-Down Baskets at "Here We Are Together", which actually describes a different method of making them than from the book.  The first couple we tried to make failed miserably.  In one, we added the big, fat (cheaper) glitter and it, literally, settled in about 10 seconds flat.  Not what we were looking for.  In the second container, we added Elmer's White Glue, which turned it into an opaque mess.  Also, not what we were looking for.  So, a few days later, after looking at the different recipes and thinking about the science behind what makes them work we decided to make an experiment out of creating the glitter jars.   

(I'm talking about the science of the jars here, not the science of meditation - I'm definitely not qualified to talk about that because I haven't been at all successful with meditation.  The closest I get to stilling my mind is in my yoga class - and I haven't been there nearly enough lately!)

Materials Needed:

• jars - we used half-pint glass mason jars
• glitter - the fine stuff
• hot water
• whisk
• bowl
• light corn syrup and/or glycerine (found in the pharmacy section)
• glitter glue
• dish soap

Process:

We ended up testing the following six recipes.  Yup, I know six is a lot.  We kind of went overboard, but once we got on a roll we kept thinking of other ways to tweak the recipes and the girls were having fun, so we went with it.  If you want to try this, you could definitely choose just 2 recipes, but make sure that you pick 2 that have fairly different approximate settling times so your child can really visualize the difference between the jars.  The picture below is a pretty good representation of the settling rates of the different recipes.

aqua (fastest settling time, ~40 seconds)

1 tbl glitter glue

1/2 tsp aqua glitter

1 cup hot water

3-4 drops dish soap

gold (about 1 min)

1/4 cup corn syrup

3/4 cup hot water

1 tsp gold glitter

3-4 drops dish soap

pink (about 1 min)

1/4 cup glycerine

3/4 cup hot water

1 tsp pink glitter

3-4 drops dish soap

silver (about 2 min)

1/4 cup glycerine

3/4 cup hot water

1 tsp silver glitter

2 tsp salt

3-4 drops dish soap

purple (about 3 min)

1/2 cup corn syrup

1/2 cup hot water

1 tsp purple glitter

3-4 drops dish soap

green (longest settling time, about 20 minutes)

2 tbl green glitter glue

1/4 cup corn syrup

3/4 cup hot water

3-4 drops dish soap

Step 1: Using a whisk, combine the hot water and the "thicker" substance (glue, corn syrup and/or glycerine).  Whisk until the mixture is uniform - usually the glue takes a little bit of work to get the clumps all out.  Pour the mixture into the jar you are using.

Step 2: Add the glitter - we only used 1 color for each one, but you could definitely do more than one.  (If you do use more than one color, don't be surprised if they settle out at a slightly different rate.  Later, we made a jar with silver and pink and the silver definitely was slower at settling out; I'm not sure if that is due to different size or density of the glitter.)  Put the top on and let your child shake the jar.

Step 3:  You will notice that some of the glitter remains floating on the top due to the surface tension of the water.  (See the picture below.)  Carefully add 3-4 drops of liquid dish soap to the top of the jar (I recommend an adult do this part) and shake the jar again.  You should see the glitter distribute much more evenly.

Note: this picture is from our first failed attempt with the bigger glitter, but the fine glitter will float at the top as well due to the surface tension of the water.

Step 4: Have your child predict which of the jars they think will settle first then shake the jars and test the prediction.  You can even use a timer and label the jars with the time it takes each to settle.  Then have your child place the jars in a line from the fastest to the slowest settling times.  Have your child draw pictures and record any observations in a science journal.  You could also have them make a graph of their results.

A few final thoughts... It really didn't seem to make a difference whether we used corn syrup or glycerine (they both had about the same settling rate) and as corn syrup is much cheaper than glycerine, I would recommend using that.  It does have a slight yellowish tinge to it, but we didn't notice it in the final product (and the glitter color slightly stained the solution anyway).  You can't tell from the recipes above, but a while later we decided to add more glitter to one of the jars to see if that made any difference and it didn't really change the settling rate.

If you do want to make a mind jar out of these and you have an idea for how long you want it to take to settle, there are a couple of ways to tweak the recipes.  In general, if you find your mixture is settling too slow, add more hot water.  If you find that it is settling too fast, you can add more corn syrup/glycerine or more salt.  (Note: if you do want to use salt, you might want to try pickling or Kosher salt as it will make a clearer solution than table salt.)

We also decided to transfer our mixture into a recycled plastic jar for a couple of reasons.  One, as you may know from an earlier post, I have recently become obsessed with canning so I jealously guard my mason jars.  Also, the thought of the girls opening the glitter jars (and the mess it would create) is terrifying me so we transferred it to a small juice bottle that had the same volume.  I plan to superglue the top so the girls can't open them.

Now that we have our mind jars, I'm off to make a calm-down basket.  And, maybe some glitter wands, too.

What's Happening?

There are three scientific concepts at play here: surface tension, viscosity and density.

Surface tension is the cohesive force on the surface of the water that causes the water molecules to cling together.  This creates both the typical circular shape of water droplets as well as a slightly more energized plane, or a surface "film", in which little things (like bugs or leaves) can walk or float.  For a more in-depth explanation of surface tension you can go here, or for a wonderful kid-friendly explanation, check out Amy's (from "The Scientific Mom") explanation in her Bubble Magic and Teddy Bear Molecules post. We talked a bit about surface tension in our Rainbow Milk activity.

Viscosity is a measure of how resistant a fluid is to flow.  An easy way to think about it is how "thick" the liquid is at a given temperature.  (Note that temperature does affect viscosity - think about what happens to honey when you heat it up!)  Some examples of liquids with high viscosity are corn syrup, honey and motor oil.  Some examples of liquids with low viscosity are water, vinegar and milk.  Here's a viscosity chart to check out if you are interested.

We've talked about density before in our density column activity.  Density is a measure of how much matter ("stuff") is in a given volume ("space").  Materials that are more dense than water will sink to the bottom and materials that are less dense than water will stay at the top.  When we added salt to the solution, we increased the density of the solution.  This made the density difference between the glitter and the solution smaller and slowed down the glitter.  A classic example of this is the floating egg experiment.  In this experiment, an egg is placed in a glass of water and sinks to the bottom.  Another egg is placed in a glass of salt water and floats in the middle of the solution.  (This is a great start of the year experiment with secondary science classes, especially if you use Kosher salt to make the salt water solution as clear as the plain water solution.)

Extension:

For older kids, I think it would be really fun to give them a design challenge.  Explain the scientific basics behind the glitter jars, maybe even make a sample one but don't give them the specific recipes.  Then tell them that you want them to make one that will settle in a designated amount of time, say 2 minutes.  Have them record all the variations of their trials in a lab notebook.  If they come up with multiple recipes that work, you could even have them calculate a cost analysis of the different ones and recommend one to produce.

Science Process Skills Used In This Activity:

Observing	Communicating	Classifying	Measuring	Inferring	Predicting
X	X	X	X		X

I hope you enjoy this activity!  If you try it, please leave me a comment to let me know how it goes!

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