Do you remember those baby doll bottles that looked like the milk was gone when you tipped them up? Wasn’t that the coolest thing when you were a kid? Ok, and still so cool to me now! Kids love watching it disappear and reappear. It offers them plenty of time to think while their hands and eyes are busy. This craft was created based on that idea. I’ve listed three different options for jars based on what you might or might not have at home, but all with disappearing and reappearing in mind.
The Flour
For this project, you’ll need about 1.5 TBS of flour per child and snack-sized zip-top bags. I suggest whole wheat flour so that it’s not an unknown white powdered substance. Adults should prepare the bags in advance, seal them, and put box tape across the top just to keep the inevitable opening and dumping from being too easy. The longer it takes them to pry it open, the more chance you have to grab it before the mess hits the floor. For the third jar option below, you’ll still need the flour, but you won’t need the baggie.
The Jar Options
The first option for creating a jar involves a color printer. Print out the jar of flour, preferably on card stock, one for each kid. Then, cut it out. Tape or glue one side of the jar together. Place your baggie of flour in the middle at the top, making sure it shows through the window. Tape it down thoroughly, folding in any protruding baggie so that it’s all contained in the paper jar. Tape or glue all sides of the paper jar shut. If you use tape, the kids can definitely do this part. Glue may get a little messy, but small children love to paint on glue instead of squeezing it out of a bottle.
You can use your most handy colored paper as a second option. You can free-hand it, print jar bw template straight onto your paper, or print it once and use it as a stencil to cut however many you need. The key is to leave enough room above the view hole to make it appear that the flour is gone when it’s turned upside down. On this one, you’ll fold your paper in half and keep the fold as one solid side of your paper jar. Tape or glue the bag of flour inside as described above and let the kids tape or glue all of the edges closed. If your kids end up loving either of these two versions, you can hop by the teacher supply store and laminate them to keep them sturdy.
For the third option, you’ll need those little water bottles or other small, inexpensive plastic jars. The trouble in using water bottles will be drying them out so the flour doesn’t clump. The other issue is getting the flour into them. If you go with other wide-mouth jars, the problem will be expense. The 8oz. size runs around $1 each online. For either type of container, once you have the flour inside, glue the lid on permanently. You can do this with craft glue or hot glue. The kids can then put strips and cones of colorful paper around the top edge. You can tell them it’s their label. They can put the word “flour” on it, or you can make them a printout with the word already written so they can glue it on. Make sure your label strips or cones are wide enough to go around the entire jar or bottle so the flour is hidden when they hold it upside down.
