As a multi-faceted and stimulating material glitter can also be a very calming substance and that’s why it should be a staple of arts and crafts activities and available at all times in your space.
Have you ever watched kids playing with glitter? They’re so in love with the glitter that they are completely absorbed. Their eyes sparkle as they are mesmerised by the shimmering glitter and are amazed and curious to see how their play becomes a source of inspiration.
Glitter is not just a source of delight to children, it can also help to calm down an over-stimulated or upset child when nothing else seems to do anything. Working in the early years for 20 years, i have learned that glitter is a must have item for art and craft and for sensory play.
In this piece, I will focus on play with glitter and how it aids in holistic development. The play of glitter not only aids children’s holistic development, it can be an extremely beneficial element of sensory play that offers an array of games and learning opportunities.
Glitter play can open up a variety of different sensory options in a child’s play, just as when a child plays with water. Children are curious and become very concentrated when they pour, filtering or passing water through various sizes of bottles and tubes, experimenting with floating, sinking, and so on. Just as playing with sand, glitter play can provide a range of therapeutic experiences, it aids concentration, improves fine motor skills, and contributes to the development of language and social skills.
I use glitter in all my crafting and art sessions and it is always available for the children to use at any moment in our kindergarten. Children are always attracted to glitter. Even as young children, they can be captivated, and their attention is drawn to shimmery or shiny materials or toys.
As children mature, their interests expand and they need to experiment. Using glitter gives children lots of opportunities to explore. It enhances their expansion in intellectual, social, fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Here are some examples:
Mark creating for toddlers and pre-schoolers
Offer activities, like creating art using glitter. This type of activity will help strengthen hands, fingers and wrists. Children must be able to move their fingers with their hands independently, or utilize a pincer grip (the pincer grip uses the thumb and the finger). The next step is strengthening the wrists as well as their thumbs. They then need to learn to rest the wrists on the table, and be in a position to move their hands freely.
Here are some activities to help mark making. I’ve chosen a few games that are fun and that directly affect learning and mentally interpreting information from the senses and control.
Homemade glitter paint
It’s much more enjoyable for our young pre-schoolers over the normal paint. Here’s a recipe for home-made glitter paint. You will require:
1 cup of flour.
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup water.
1 cup of salt.
Food colours you like.
Squeeze bottles.
Large bowl.
Paper.
Mix all the ingredients in the large bowl with the exception of the colour. Mix the ingredients into squeeze bottles. Now add a different colour to each bottle and shake it up thoroughly. When it’s all mixed, distribute it to your youngsters to apply it to the paper. After the paint has dried it is the salt present in the paint creates the glitter effect.
Paint Christmas the stars, trees, snow balls – just let the children’s imagination run. The paint can be used in all kinds of occasions and occasions in our pre-school.
Paint leaves and fir cones using glitter glue
Natural materials are fun to work with and can provide the bonus of helping the children understand nature. They will be able to recognize the different kinds of trees. You’ll need:
Collection of different types of leaves and fir cones.
Transparent glue.
Glitter.
Paint for posters.
String.
Children should mix glitter with transparent glue. Paint the leaves or colour the leaves and fir cones. The leaves can be tied with string and create a leaf bunting.
Glitter pebbles spooning activity
This activity helps young children focus on their hand-eye coordination. You’ll need:
Two bowls of the same size.
Teaspoon.
Tray.
Sand made of gold or silver (or pebbles)
The sand should be placed in one bowl. The child needs to transfer the sand, by using a spoon, to another bowl. This can help a child to concentrate and stay focused by transferring the bright sand from one bowl into the other bowl. Children will benefit from better eye coordination and focus, and will improve the thumb, finger and wrists muscles.
Glitter sand
Mix together sand and glitter. Children can use their fingers to create shapes , and later to create letters and numbers. Provide paint brushes, and forks and rakesin order to make shapes.
Glitter playdough
Playdough that is glittered with playdough is my favourite activity for children of all ages. Making, rolling, sculpting, cutting, pushing, squeezing and even tasting playdough helps in making the finger muscles robust.
The addition of glitter adds another aspect to the play. If you have a topic that is ongoing in the pre-school, then you can make different colour playdough and glitter. This is for instance the different colours of playdough used in our lesson on food and nutrition’. Children made a variety of fruits and veggies from playdough.
We used black coloured playdough for our topic on ‘space and planets’. The kids enjoyed playing with the black , silvery glittery playdough to make meteor rocks and stars. Also, provide children with shiny beads, as well as silver and gold-colored paper.
These are enjoyable play activities , but they have a direct impact on the development of perception and control as well as sensory experiences. There are a myriad of other activities that offer similar opportunities.
Calming bottles
I make use of these calming bottles when I have an over-excited and over-stimulated child who needs to settle down. These colorful, glittery snow globe type bottles are extremely soothing and an excellent tool to help children make the shift from self-regulation to co-regulation, for instance in the event that a child becomes distressed for whatever reason and does not want to be reassured and prefers to be left alone.
Calming bottles come in useful. Set the bottle on the child’s lap in a place where they can observe. The bottles help keep children’s attention to a single area, particularly when the child feels like no one is there to help.
It is possible for children to shake the bottles upside-down and immediately focus on the glitter swirling and settling down. It creates a peaceful, soothing effect on the brain. The child is calming down and is not focused on pushing or kicking. The breathing of the child will settle down and will eventually reach the normal rate.
These bottles can be used to serve as “time-out” bottles, when a child is struggling to settle down and remain quiet for a some time. Choose the bottle and invite them to relax and gaze at as the glitter has fallen to the bottom. It takes about 10 to fifteen minutes for glitter to completely settle down. The kids love watching this. I make the bottles along with pre-schoolers. You will require:
Small plastic empty water bottle.
A 1/4 cup container of glue clear.
Hot water.
Choose the glitter you like.
Hot glue gun.
Large mixing bowl.
Hand mixer.
First, you need to put the clear glue in the mixing container. After that, add enough water to fill the bottle to its neck (taking into account the safety of your children). Now add the glitter you like.
Mix all of the ingredients Be sure that the glitter and glue is well mixed and all glitter lumps are broken up, until the mixture is smooth and has no lumps left. When the liquid has reached room temperature, fill it to the neck of the plastic bottle.
The last (adult) procedure is to seal the lid with an adhesive gun to ensure that children won’t be in a position to open the bottle.
Edible glitter
In this article, I’d like to discuss edible glitter. It is easy and inexpensive to make, and kids will have a lot of fun doing so. When I first told my preschoolers that we would be using to make ‘eating glitter’ they were astonished. They wanted to know whether they could eat glitter. I said, of course that when we decorate our Christmas biscuits or cupcakes, you will be able to smell the sparkles. You can make these well in advance and keep your food in an airtight bottle. The edible glitter is suitable in all occasions, such as birthday parties halloween, Easter, Halloween or Christmas, as well as for cooking and baking.
I love doing these types of activities with the children. I want them to realize that it is not necessary to buy everything from the shops. There are things that could be created by us. These kinds of activities provide children the opportunity to work together as together, to study the basics of math, and to build language skills and discover new vocabulary. It helps children develop social skills, such as working together as a group by sharing and caring while waiting their turn and much more. For their emotional well-being, it provides the pleasure of watching the final product as exciting.
Making glitter sugar sparkles
Things you’ll need:
One cup of sugar in granulated form.
One teaspoon of food color of your color of your.
Oven tray.
Mixing bowl.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. The colour and sugar in the mixing bowl . Then mix them all together. Spread them out thinly to the oven tray. Bake it in the oven for about 10 minutes, or till sugar appears shiny. After the sugar is cool mix it up and keep it in an airtight container. You can use it anytime you want to decorate cakes or biscuits and the like.
Edible salt glitter
Simple and affordable You can add this glitter to your playdough and make homemade paint. You’ll require:
One cup sea salt (or cooking salt).
Two teaspoons or less of food colouring of choice (depending on how strong you’d like the color to appear (light or dark).
Oven tray.
Mixing bowl.
The oven should be heated to 180 degrees. Add the salt and the colour into the mixing bowl and then mix. Once mixed, spread thinly on the oven tray and bake within the oven to bake for 10 minutes. When the salt is cool then mix it up again and store it in an airtight container.
Utilizing natural materials and combining them with colour, glitter and glue is very satisfactory for both children and adults. It’s very economical and some of the supplies are in your backyard and at your home. If you don’t have a backyard then you can use the nature parks and public woodlands. They are full of natural resources, that are completely free and children are able to benefit from these mini trips.
In our preschool, right after Easter, we often spend an entire day in the park. The children are taken in by parents and the teachers meet them there. The children have their normal kindergarten days in this natural environment. They really enjoy this time in the park. We collect all sorts of thingslike twigs, nuts, leaves as well as fir cones, acorns and many more. We then bring them back in the classroom.
Sand can be very relaxing for children. Adding glitter can be a great sensory boost and entices children who are shy to participate and boosts their social skills. Being creative enhances their skills in fine motor abilities and language development. It assists children in integrating into the larger group.
All of these activities support children’s imagination and they learn how to use materials that are readily available to them. The most important factor behind these activities is that the children are using their senses. They use their hearing, vision and senses, they are tasting the air, touching and tasting. All of this is employing fine motor kinaesthetic capabilities.
You are encouraging children to participate in activities which improve their self-esteem, and sense of competence in the areas which are appreciated by all of us. This can increase their enthusiasm and motivation for learning, while laying the groundwork for primary education and beyond.
Key Points
Using sand is very therapeutic for children, and adding glitter to the mix adds a sensory benefit that can help children who are shy and enhances their social abilities.
Being creative enhances their skills in fine motor skill and language development. It aids children in their integration into the group.
Glitter should be available at all times during your first years of setting
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