Homemade Squeeze Balls
These homemade squeeze balls are the perfect tool to help ease the pressure of homework for older children, and are a great fine motor activity for younger children.
Materials:
- filling such as flour, cornstarch, sand, small beans, bird seed (large seeds sifted out), popcorn kernals
- quality helium balloons
- empty plastic water bottle
- funnel
Directions:
The best method for getting the filling inside the balloon is to pour about 1/3 cup of filling in into a dry water bottle using a funnel. Partially blow up a balloon. Pinch the neck of the balloon closed. Here’s where it gets tricky — while pinching the balloon closed, place the lip of the balloon over the mouth of the bottle. Now you can release your pinch. If the balloon is firmly connected to the bottle, turn the bottle upside down to allow the filling to flow into the balloon. Pinch the balloon neck again and disconnect it from the bottle. Slowly release the air from the balloon (if using flour or cornstarch, do this very slowly or else the powder will blow out with the air). Try to get as much air out of the balloon as possible. Tie a knot. For added fun, decorate the balloon with permanent markers and watch it stretch and distort. Other variations for fillers: hair gel, shampoo, Play Doh, putty. The method for filling the balloon will be different — find a way to open the lip of a deflated balloon wide (for example, cut off the top of a Gatoraid bottle, or a similar wide mouth bottle, and place the lip of the balloon around the bottle mouth to open it wide). Then shove the filler in manually.
Voila!
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