Sensory Bottles

Sensory bottles are a great way to partake in sensory play! They offer tons of different sensory inputs and are super versatile! You can make them with what you have at home or go all out! It’s a great educational experience for your child and a great way to introduce them to new things.

Benefits

Sensory
- Sensory is in the name for a reason! These bottles provide visual, tactile, and even auditory input.
Language
- When making this craft, take the opportunity to teach your child descriptive words. Have them explain what is going on. This is also an excellent opportunity to work on receptive and expressive language and gives your child a chance to ask questions and learn more about and interact with their environment.
Social and Communication Skills
- This is an interactive activity where a child has the opportunity to problem-solve and communicate about what they are seeing to other children, siblings, or even to you as their parent.
Fine motor
- Sensory bottles allow a child to work on the muscles in the hands, grasp, hand-eye coordination, and more! This can be simply by having your child hold and turn the bottle or when they are putting the materials into the bottle.
Emotional Regulation
- This activity is also a great chance to talk about emotional regulation. These bottles are an excellent tool for your child to calm down because they focus on what is happening inside the bottle and still their mind.
Math
- For older kids, you can even teach counting and numbers. For example, have your child count the number of pom poms going into the sensory bottle.

Basics of Making a Sensory Bottle

Sensory bottles are a versatile activity. The foundation is made up of the bottle, liquid, and visuals. You can customize how much and what you put inside the bottle to make different effects. We’ve listed some ideas below, but this is a great craft to play around with. It can be done easily with things you probably already have at home, or you can make it as fancy and interactive as you’d like!

Bottle

For the bottle, you can use a plastic water bottle; simply take off the label. You can also use nicer water bottles like Voss, which has sturdier plastic. You can go to the store and look for different clear bottles. We used a bottle we found at Dollar Tree. The dollar store is a great place to find different shapes and sizes of bottles that are inexpensive. You can go to a craft store to pick up some globe-shaped bottles too! Anything with a lid that you can seal shut will work. Get as creative as you’d like with it!

Liquid

For the liquid, the most common method is to use water mixed with things such as baby oil, cooking oil, clear craft glue, or corn syrup. The ratios are up to you, but the more oil or corn syrup you add, the slower the items inside will flow.

One of the easiest and coolest methods of making a sensory bottle involves filling the bottle halfway with oil and halfway with water. You can also play around with the ratios, such as adding 1/3 oil and 2/3 water.

Visuals

For the visual aspect of the bottle, add whatever you’d like. Some ideas are glitter, sequins, aqua beads, beads, small toy animals, pom poms, Legos, etc. If it fits into the bottle, it is a great thing to add! Just make sure it isn’t anything that would dissolve in water.

Sensory Bottle Ideas

Get creative with your bottle! A great way to add an extra element to the sensory bottle is to follow a theme. The ones below are just examples, but you can experiment with different themes and element combinations to your heart’s content!

Space Bottle

Create a liquid combo (we recommend baby oil and water) of whatever your preferred viscosity is. Add dark purple or black food coloring. Since this is supposed to be space, it’s okay to make the liquid darker. Add silver glitter, star sequins, toy rockets, and toy astronauts.

Safari Bottle

Create a liquid combo of whatever your preferred viscosity is. Add green food coloring. You can add glitter if you’d like; we recommend either gold or green glitter. At the craft store, look for animal confetti or sequins. Animal buttons work too! You can also add small safari animal toys.

Ocean Bottle

Create a liquid combo of whatever your preferred viscosity is. Add blue food coloring. Add blue and white aqua beads. You can also add small marbles or flat glass marbles. Finally, add a toy fish or two. Add glitter if you would like.

How to Make a Sensory Bottle

Version 1:

-Plastic bottle

-water

-baby oil

-food coloring

-glitter

-sequins

-pearl beads

1. Fill the bottle 1/3 way with baby oil. Fill the rest with water. Leave a small gap at the top.

2. Add food coloring, glitter, sequins, and pearl beads. Pour in more water to fill the bottle if you have space.

3. Put the lid on and shake well.

4. When you’re happy with your bottle, seal the lid with super glue.

Version 2: