Sensory Bottles

I love love love sensory bottles. They are so simple to make and offer a blank canvas for any and all subjects. With Little J being obsessed with space lately, it only made sense to whip up a few DIY sensory bottles with an outer space theme. While the moon is his favourite part of outer space right now, I wanted to cover a few bases with the bottles. From an alien bottle to one filled with planets and stars, I made four in total.

To create any of the sensory bottles, you will need to start with a bottle! Many people use Voss glass water bottles but I didn’t have any on hand. I find the Hawaiian Punch plastic bottles to be the perfect size! You can also use mason jars and other glass bottles. I prefer plastic so I don’t fret about it getting broken. No matter what style you choose, be sure to secure the lid with some sort of glue to keep curious hands from opening it!

Alien Sensory Bottle

For this bottle all you need is some clear hair gel, green food colouring, googly eyes and water.

Fill the bottle half-full with hair gel. Add some water to make it about 3/4 full. Add one drop of liquid food colouring – I used the green from a neon pack I picked up at Walmart. Shake it up to mix it all together. Next up, toss in your googly eyes and shake it all up. Voila! You have made a fun green alien sensory bottle.

Glow in the Dark Sensory Bottle

This bottle is ridiculously simple to make. Pick up a pack of glow in the dark bracelets at your local dollar store. I found them quite long so I had to find a taller bottle in my collection. If you can find glow sticks which are shorter, you can use a smaller bottle. Toss the glow sticks into the bottle, fill it up with tap water and add a drop of blue food colouring. Instant nightlight!

Glitter Sensory Bottles

Glitter sensory bottles are some of my faves. For this sensory bottle, you will need baby oil, star sequins and blue glitter. I used a combination of fine light blue glitter and a chunkier, darker blue glitter. Toss everything in the bottle, give it a shake and watch the glitter and stars slowly descend. This is a great device to help calm down your kids as well.

Stars & Planets Sensory Bottle

For this bottle, I used water as my base and added glitter pom poms in yellow & white, moon shapes cut from sheets of yellow foam and some marbles. My original intent was to use rubber balls but alas, I couldn’t find any with swirls resembling planets at my local dollar store. The bag of marbles I picked up instead were absolutely perfect with their glitter and swirls. Try as I might, I could not get those marbles to fit into my plastic bottles. When using marbles, it is definitely a good idea to use a plastic bottle – a Gatorade bottle with a screw-top lid would probably work very well. The only container I had in my house with a wide enough opening was a mason jar. If you opt for marbles in glass, it will be heavy so it’s definitely a jar to monitor your children with.

The different weights in this jar are a great lesson in physics. When talking about space, you can’t avoid science! The foam moons and pom poms floated and glided around the jar beautifully. It was also interesting to turn the jar on its side and slowly move the marbles around.

More great crafts for kids – this way!

If you’re obsessed with space like we are, how about Tin Foil Moon Craft, Alphabet Space Ship Craft, or more Space Crafts for Kids?