Glitter Jars

My mother in law and I have been hearing tons about these glitter jars lately.  We decided to make some of our own with the kiddos.  I just love the idea of them as a parenting tool, and even to calm my own nerves from time to time lol.  When you or your little ones are feeling out of sorts or need a minute to calm and process information, just shake the jar and watch the glitter go around and start to settle.  Once the glitter is all settled, you should feel better and more calm to address the issue at hand.

      There are a bunch of tutorials online about glitter jars (time out jars, mind jars, meditation jars and galaxy in a jar)).  We read through a few, then just kind of came up with our own way to make them.  They turned out very pretty :)

First we gathered supplies:

Empty Jars

Glitter Glue

Loose Glitter, different sizes

Glow in the Dark Stars

Charms

Food Coloring

Hot Water

Step 1 - Fill your empty jar one third of the way with hot water.

Step 2 - Add a couple tablespoons of glitter glue, or clear glue with out glitter and stir thoroughly.  It is up to you how much to add.  The more glue you use, the longer it takes the glitter to settle in your ending product.

Step 3 - Now add anything extra, like a drop of food coloring, charms, sequence and more glitter.  This is where you can really customize your jar, and add things you think are pretty :)

Step 4 - Fill the remaining space in the jar with more water until it's an inch from the top.

Step 5 - Secure lid tightly, shake, watch and relax :

Here are a few that we made today.

The kids made some with recycled baby food jars :)

So far they have been working great :)

Here is a video to really show how they look :)

http://youtu.be/AYTDZCi5WGI

We're learning Latin-American Spanish!

Hola,

The Charmed Farm Fam is going to try and learn a new language!  Rosetta Stone had a New Year's special on their software programs, more than 1/2 off.

 Here is Rob doing his first lesson :)

Normally the programs cost $499, but they were marked down to $229. Also, we purchased through ebates.com and got another $16 cash back :) The program allows up to 5 users - my hubby, my 10 year old son, my 12 year old daughter, my mother in law and I are all going to try it out. If the program works for us, I want to look into "Rosetta Stone for Kids" for the little ones. If just one of us can pick up a new language, I'd say it was $213 well spent.

Have any of you tried Rosetta Stone programs? Any advice or tips on learning a new language?

I personally took a Spanish class in middle school, high school, even in college and have yet to be fluent. I have picked up more and more along the way, but would not be able to hold a convo.  I think my issue is that I have never immersed myself in the language or culture.  With my family learning together, we can help each other and really have fun with it :) We can study Latin American traditions, eat their cuisine, watch movies together in Spanish and who knows? Maybe when we finish the program we can take a trip! We will let you know how it goes :)

Adiós,

The Charmed Farm