Creative Cuties Craft Corner: Galaxy Jars

👧💡🛠️Welcome back to the Creative Cuties Craft Corner, finding you fun and engaging activities that you and your mini-me can do together while creating lasting memories. This time we explore galaxy jars and how children can use them for sensory learning and science.👩‍🚀🌠🌌

We know that the world is full of adventure, but what about the stars? 🤔Space has always been a mystery to us but learning about it is tons of fun, especially for creative cuties. 

📚This DIY project for kids is a fantastic way to learn and express oneself with fun and easy to get supplies you most likely may have around your home already. It helps children feel a sense of accomplishment and creativity they can use in other aspects of their lives.👧💪

👀👆👂Creating a galaxy or nebula jar not only sparks a conversation about the space beyond our planet but is also a fun way to explore sensory education. Sensory play and learning assists little ones with smelling, touching, and understanding texture in an environment with little expectation. Additionally, it encourages motor skill development, scientific thinking, and problem-solving using mindful activities. These skills, in turn, help build positive pathways that tell little learners it's safe to engage.

🔍Need another reason? How about learning attributes and ways to describe new things? Sensory play helps set up questions for children to draw their own conclusions. 🤔Whether they something is rough or sticky, cold or dry, bright or smelly, they naturally increase their vocabulary and understanding of the world around them. Learning what types of information are helpful versus what can be filtered out can also help calm an anxious, frustrated, or overstimulated child.🤗 Not to mention, it's just plain fun!🎉

• mason jar/ water bottle
• cotton balls
• 3-4 types of food coloring/ watercolor paints/ acrylic tempura
• cotton balls
• glitter/ confetti 
• water

How To Make...

🔮Time to create a galaxy! For this example, we will be working with a small mason jar with a lid. We're going to fill 1/3 of the jar with water. From here, add several drops of the paint of your choosing in one color.🟣 Close the lid and shake to mix until color and water have blended. Throw in a bit of glitter and swish around to incorporate. Take your cotton balls and stretch them out with your hands. ⚪Next, push the stretched cotton balls down to the bottom of the jar until the base is covered. The cotton balls will absorb some of the colored water and glitter.✨

📋Now we'll fill the next 1/3 of the jar with water and repeat the process using a different color. The second color will begin to blend slightly with the first, which will create the galactic hues found in space. 🔁Repeat steps with your glitter "stars" and stretched cotton balls "nebula clouds." Once some of the liquid and color is absorbed again, repeat all the steps until the jar is full! Tightly secure lid in place and you've got yourselves a galaxy in a jar.🪄

👩‍👧‍👧💡🛠️The rest is up to you! Have you tried this process with your little one before? Think you'll give it a shot now? If so, leave a comment below on your experience and what you both learned. We'd absolutely love to hear from our creative cuties out there.👩‍👧‍👧💡🛠️