Make your own sensory bottles for babies and toddlers – instructions & ideas for filling material
Babies and toddlers love to clear out the kitchen drawers and spend hours with the hidden treasures. By then at the latest, young parents will realize that they don’t always have to be expensive toys. In today’s post we would like to present you with a great and simple DIY idea. We’ll show you how to make creative toys for your little ones that will also stimulate their sensory development. Get inspiring ideas for sensory bottles for babies and toddlers and implement them right away!
You can easily make the Sensory Bottles yourself at home, because you probably have most of the crafting materials ready anyway. The self-made colorful discovery bottles, also called sensory bottles, are sure to exert a special fascination on your children. You can also be sure that this colorful DIY toy will be unique in itself.
For this exciting and educational activity for your little ones, small, clean PET bottles and filling material of your choice are necessary. The Sensory Bottles have to be small so that your baby can hold and rotate them well. So that the magic bottles appeal to several senses of your child, the filling material should be colorful, beautifully glitter, rattle and rattle.
Incidentally, this exciting activity is inspired by the Montessori school. Let your creativity run free, look around for objects in your home that stimulate your child’s auditory and visual senses and conjure up a unique sensory bottle. The little ones will then marvel at the sensory bottles, turn them over and shake them to make noise. You will be fascinated by the movement of the small elements inside.
Before we look at the handicraft instructions for the great Sensory Bottles, we would like to give you some useful tips. Securing the bottle is essential so that your child can safely and safely use the attractive toy. Once you have filled the plastic bottle, apply glue to the screw cap and screw it on tightly.
After a few hours, make sure that the glue is completely dry. In addition, the sensory bottle must be manageable according to the age of the child. It shouldn’t be heavy so that the little ones can play with it effortlessly. If the sensory bottle is intended for a baby, you can, for example, only half fill the PET bottle with the small figures. For older children, on the other hand, sensory bottles filled with liquid would be a real highlight.
If you want to achieve additional color effects, you can color the water in the bottle with liquid food or watercolor paints if you wish. As mentioned earlier, the aim of this educational activity would be learning through observation. So make sure that the bottle is clean in good time and remove any labels and residues if necessary.
We recommend adding baby oil, liquid soap or glycerine so that the small toys, pompoms, sequins and various other dige that have used them are clearly visible and float in them. Their presence slows down the movement of the colorful objects, which attracts your child’s attention.
The production of the magic bottle is very easy. Put the material in the transparent filling bottle and fill it up with water and baby oil using a funnel. Now apply all-purpose glue or hot glue to the edge of the closure and close the lid. In the example above, the decision was made to use colored iron-on beads that float in the bottle when shaken and swirl colorfully.
Children love everything that sparkles and glitters. So you can fill the bottle with water and lots of glitter. An effective combination results from fine glitter and larger glitter flakes or stars. The choice of color is of course entirely up to you and your child’s preferences. If you want to make a Sensory Bottle look thematically like the water in the ocean, glitter in blue and green is ideal. For a rainbow endfinder bottle, you need different colors as possible.
Another great idea for filling the attractive, homemade Sensory Bottles would be things that are in every kitchen. Fill the bottle with foods like rice, pasta, lentils, corn, beans, cinnamon sticks, or coffee beans. This is an inexpensive, and most importantly, quick DIY project. If you have chosen rice for the bottle filling, you can color it in a color of your choice. You need a zipper bag for this.
Now add 1 tablespoon of vinegar and stir in some food coloring. Add the rice, seal the bag and shake several times so that the color is evenly distributed. Then let the rice dry overnight and then fill the bottle. Please don’t forget to glue the lid on.
Colorful pompoms, pens, buttons, cubes, letters, scraps of paper, foil, pieces of pipe cleaner and much more also looks great in the bottle and can swirl around nicely. If you have brightly colored straws on hand, you can cut them into smaller pieces and let your child fill them into the plastic bottle. This activity trains the little ones’ fine motor skills.
In addition, the children have great fun taking part in various handicraft projects. Let your imagination run wild and experiment with the choice of filling material. A great way to develop your child in a playful way, isn’t it?