Hubby plays PS4 quite a bit and then around this time of the year, my carpal tunnel also tends to hurt more so he bought stress balls. Well, as soon as the kids saw them, they immediately decided, it was theirs! 🤦♀️ They were squishy and colorful so of course, they loved it.
Over the weekend, I decided to reclaim our stress balls by making home-made ones for the kids to enjoy. 😉 It was simple, cheap, and at one point, messy (we had water beads all over the floor)!
Materials:
- Water Beads
- Balloons (we used 16″)
- Bowl
- Water
- Scissors (to cut plastic containers of water beads & balloons)
- Empty water bottles (we used the 500 mL ones)
- Strainer
Instructions:
- Put your desired amount of water beads in the bowl.
- Pour water into the bowl to soak the water beads.
- Leave the water beads soaking for at least 2 hours. ***Encourage your kids to check on the soaked beads periodically so they can see it change in size. For Oliver, it increased his excitement. For Aiden (ASD), it helped prepare him for the upcoming activity.
- When at least 2 hours have passed, strain the water.
- Start putting the water beads into the empty water bottles. Fill to 1/2 to 3/4 of the bottle. ***This is a great “put-in task” for children in the Autism Spectrum.
- Fit the mouth of the bottle into the mouth of the balloon.
- Squeeze the bottle to transfer the water beads into the balloon. ***This is a great “fine motor activity” for children in the Autism Spectrum.
- Once you have the desired amount of water beads in the balloon, remove the mouth of the balloon from the mouth of the bottle
- Tie the balloon.
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