In January, in my therapy gym, we decided to have a glow stick party.
Technically there was no “reason” for this other than that it was fun and changed up the pace a little bit, but there is also clinically an argument to be made for lots of things that the kids experienced via the glow stick fun — visual sensory stimulation, tolerating the lights being off/things being different, the way the visuals tied into vestibular or proprioceptive input as they swung on the swing or climbed up the rope mountain and watched the lights and colors react to that, etc.
I was able to do this because my friend gave me a bunch of cheap glow sticks she was given. I think you could find packs of glow sticks like the ones I used at a dollar store or pound store. They weren’t very strong and didn’t last very long, but that was okay, we only wanted them for one day anyway.
It was a great experiment! Many of the preschoolers had never seen glow sticks before and all were very intrigued. We were ready to turn on the lights if anyone was too distressed by them being dimmed, but luckily the few who were concerned about it understood once they got to play with the lights. My favorite was the glow sticks I attached to our fidget/sensory wall, because you could spin them around and around and watch the lights spin. Lots of stimmy sensory goodness!
