Lavender Rice Mini Zen Garden

Mini Calming Zen Garden

 

Soon I will be implementing a chill out corner as a discipline tool, instead of usign the negative isolated time out, this chill out with follow the basic principle of time out but will be used as a calming or settling technique, not as a punishment. There will be no time limit and the space will be a calming, relaxed, quiet and soothing atmosphere where Dimples (and I) can go to re-centre and chill out. It is still in the making, so look out for that post. Here is one of the calming activities that will be in the chill out corner.

 

This is a form of Miniature Zen garden. It is made with Lavender Dyed Rice. I first soaked the rice in purple colour, drained and dried it. Then soaked it again, this time in Lavender Oil. It was a success and has the nicest sweetest fragrance. 

I found a suitable storage tin, an old short bread tin to keep it in but while in use, the lid works perfectly as the base of the Zen garden. I gave Dimples a scoop, a fork, a swizle stick for drawing patterns through the rice and some smooth blue and white pebbles, then i added a buddah statue and an elephant magnet.

The smell was definitly strong enough to soothe the soul. As Dimples played he breathed it in and seemed very content and calm as he designed a little garden with the rocks.

 

He buried the stones so that only the tops were out, and scooped the rice around. Lavender is said to be a stress relief, or a relaxing smell that helps ease the mind and the body. The colours of blue and purple are also said to be cool calming colours, so these were the basis of the zen garden.

Dimples enjoyed the activity and stuck with it a lot longer than I had imagined. I am not 100% sure if it did have a calming affect on him, or if he was already in a good mood but he was definitly was at peace and sat very quietly fiddling around with full concerntration. Then we packed it all up in the tin and will put in the chill out corner.