Jar of calm Montessori, experience the best recipe.

Let’s discover together the Jar of Montessori calm and how to build it.

During the school year, Montessori activities accompanied us on our way.

Transfers, manipulations of all kinds of material, jars and packaging to open and close, games with natural materials and recovery, everything has helped us to progress amusing, so that when I ask my children what have you learned this year?

The answer is often linked to a manipulative activity montessoriana.

For this reason when it came to organize a workshop to share with parents during the final party, the choice fell on the jar of Montessori calm, but...

What is the Calm Jar and what is it for?

The jar of calm montessoriano is a transparent container, inside which are inserted small elements, generally colored and bright, that moving within the liquid that contains them, capture the eyes and attention of children.

This jar is pleasant to observe and is particularly useful in moments when children feel the need to release tension, shaking it, gives life to the fluid and hypnotic movement of small contained elements, which combined with a deep breathing, Helps to regain calm and concentration.

Recipe for the jar of calm montessoriano.

Even before being used, the jar of Montessorian calm is fun to prepare, it is easy and rewarding for little boys and girls to do, and requires few readily available materials:

Small jars or bottles, preferably of unbreakable material.
Water, preferably hot.
Food colour.
Small objects to be left floating.
Glitter glue.
Shampoo or alternatively seed oil.
Hot glue.

Before you start make sure you have chosen the right materials.

How to prepare the Jar of Montessorian calm.

After choosing the most suitable container and having prepared all the elements to be inserted, proceed by filling with hot water, preferably, the container.

The heat in fact helps to amalgamate more easily the different ingredients but if, for practical or safety reasons, you prefer to use cold water, the magic of the jar will work equally, it will be just a little more laborious to mix everything.

The water should fill the jar almost completely, but leaving a small portion of space inside to add the other ingredients and to allow the content to move and mix.

After the water, they will be inserted into the jar, one at a time all the other elements, which will be well mixed and amalgamated, using a teaspoon a stick or simply shaking the container.

Only at the end, when you are satisfied with the visual result, you can fix the lid with a drop of hot glue, to avoid accidental opening and leakage of liquid.

The jar of Montessori calm in different versions.

At school, we carried out this activity together with parents, only after experimenting, messing up and playing with different versions of the jar of calm, in previous days, This helped us to discover that materials react differently depending on how they are mixed and here is what we found.

Jar of Montessori calm with oil.

The jar prepared with seed oil is very nice to watch, for the luminous effect created by the drops of oil that float in the water without mixing; to prepare it is enough to add a good amount of seed oil, about 2/3 of the container, to water and then mix.

If you want to create an even brighter effect, you can add small golden elements, such as stars, which take the color of oil and easily slip into the fluid.

The glitter instead in this version do not work, they stick and do not amalgamate, giving the whole a heaviness effect.

This version of the Montessoriano can be easily recreated at home, without the need to add too many elements and, with little expense, it will still be rewarding for children.

Jar of Montessori calm, what makes it more beautiful.

Transparency.

In an attempt to use materials of easy consumption, I tried to mix with water elements such as tempera and watercolors, the effect that results is not bad but certainly, using food coloring the water remains at the same time colored and clear and the final effect is much more pleasant.

If you have to create the jars of calm with all the children in the section and you want to save, it will be enough to add to the jar only a drop of water colored with watercolor, to have a lively effect but at the same time light.

Lightness.

The amount of glitter, glitter glue and shampoo to use, varies depending on the size of the jar and how much liquid it can contain.

Of course in smaller containers a smaller quantity will be needed.

In the case of the calm jar, overdoing with different items can be counterproductive, because the more material we will put into the jar and the less space this will have to move

Float and create the desired special effect; It is better to leave room for the idea that less is more.

Colour.

Depending on the theme you are going to choose for your calm jar, it may be useful to let one color prevail rather than many.

This will help you to characterize the jar.

In our case, the choice fell on recovered materials already present at school and, for the occasion, inside our jar of calm, we wanted to recreate a seabed.

barattolo calma fondale marino

So we added elements like small shells, fishies of cloth, blue bubbles of recovery, silver glitter, glue glitter blue and plastic flowers with the addition of a drop of blue food coloring.

The most important ingredient to create a Montessorian Calm Jar is to let children do the whole process from beginning to end

without replacing them, even at the risk of a few drops of water falling or some material used in an approximate way.

Adults often spontaneously replace children, because the jug is difficult to handle, the glue is sticky and glitter can go wasted

But the meaning of an activity such as preparing a jar of calm Montessori is just this:

Allow children to live an experience independently and with spontaneity.

Of course there are more structured and less dirty activities, but these same activities are also often, inexorably, more boring and less useful.