Take a shake break

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Setting up this activity

• Make sure that all of the jars are clean and see-through. They should then use a ruler and a pen to mark a spot on each jar about one or two centimetres up from the base.
• Assemble the arts and crafts supplies, jars, glitter, spoons and towels on a large table with a smooth surface. There should be one jar per person and one for the person leading the activity.

Run the activity

1. Gather everyone together and explain to the group what ‘mindfulness’ is. Mindfulness is a technique you can learn, which involves making a special effort to notice what’s happening in the present moment (in your mind, body and surroundings) without judging anything. It aims to help you be more self-aware, calmer and less stressed, feel more able to choose how to respond to your thoughts and feelings, and to cope with difficult and unhelpful thoughts.
2. Tell everyone they'll be making their own mindfulness jars to help them feel calmer when they might be stressed or frustrated.
3. Everyone should fill their jar with the PVA glue up to the point marked on the jar, which is between one and two centimetres from the base.
4. Now, everyone should add a tablespoon of glitter to their jar.
5. An adult volunteer should get a jug of warm water. This can be from a hot tap or from a kettle, but it should not be too hot. The adult volunteer should fill each jar from the warm water jug to about an inch from the top.
6. With adult supervision, everyone should gently should stir the contents of their jar with a tablespoon and then fix their lids on to their jars.
7. Dry each jar with a towel to remove any spilled water or condensation.
8. An adult volunteer should go around the table and make sure that each lid is securely fastened and test each jar to make sure that none of the contents can leak out. An adult could also choose to use a hot glue gun to secure the lids. 
9. The person leading the activity should prepare their own jar in the same way, before demonstrating the mindfulness technique to the group. They should stand and hold the jar out in front of you tightly with two hands. Shake the jar for thirty seconds and then stop. Watch the glitter inside the jar continue to move around until it settles down again.
10. Explain that the glitter is like your thoughts and feelings, while the jar is like your mind. Often, it can be nice to have things settle down, so that you can chill out, think about choices and make smart decisions.
11. Everyone should hold out their jars and shake them for thirty seconds, taking care not to drop them. After thirty seconds, everyone should stop, sit and watch the glitter in their jars in silence until it settles. They should use this time to breathe deeply, calm down and focus.
12. Invite the group to take their jars away with them to use at times when they feel stressed, anxious or unhappy.

This activity helps contribute towards some of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Find out more about the SDGs, and how Scouts across the world are getting involved.