Make Stress Balls

To create a stress ball, you will need :

- a balloon in the color of your choice

- an empty water bottle

- flour (or powdered plaster)

- a tool to make pom-poms

- yarn

- a black permanent marker

- some colored cardstock

- a pair of scissors

Fill an empty water bottle with flour or powdered plaster using a small spoon or a funnel.

Place a balloon on the neck of the bottle.

While holding the top of the balloon over the neck, turn the bottle upside down and squeeze it to let the flour (or plaster) enter the balloon.

Fill the balloon according to the desired size.

Once the balloon is filled, tie a knot to enclose the flour (or plaster) inside it.

For the character's hair, make a pom-pom with yarn using our pom-pom maker tool.

Attach your pompom with a piece of yarn under the knot on the balloon.

Draw a face on the balloon using a black permanent marker.

Try to draw a face that expresses an emotion easily recognizable to a child.

Cut a rectangle from a sturdy cardstock and then write the emotion represented on the stress ball.

To enhance the game further, in addition to recognizing emotions, you can also match the color of the cardstock with the color of the stress character's hair.

Make several stress balls showing different emotions as well as several cards to teach children to recognize emotions (and colors!)

Once all the emotions associated with the right characters are in place, children will be able to squeeze stress balls for hours!