Sensory play: discovery bottles

Following on from my last two sensory play posts, today's post is about our discovery bottles. This is an idea I found on Pinterest, and my new favourite website, The Imagination Tree, had some great ideas about what to put in the bottles.

These are a really simple idea - fill a plastic bottle with things for baby to discover in a safe way. Most of the bottle fillers are things which wouldn't be suitable for a baby to play with on their own (e.g. buttons), but allowing them to view them through the safety of a plastic bottle allows them to discover what they look like, how they sound, and how the things interact in a totally safe environment.

They are also extremely simple to make - I found the hardest bit was getting the bottles! A few special soft drink purchases were made to gather them!

To fill our bottles I gathered up:
- buttons
- Hama beads (used for making melt-a-bead pictures)
- glitter
- food colouring
- washing up liquid/dish soap
- pom poms
- pipe cleaners
- 'jewels'
- baby oil

Once the bottles were cleaned and dried, I simply filled each one with a different 'thing' to be explored. Most of the bottles are simply dry with with items inside, however two of my favourite bottles are 'wet' bottles - our lava lamp and bubble maker.

The bubble maker bottle is just water with a small amount of food colouring, and a generous amount of washing up liquid. It looks pretty unimpressive, until Isabelle starts to shake it when the bubbles appear. Safe bubble fun for someone too little to blow bubbles. The lava lamp is made of 2/3 water (with some food colouring) and 1/3 baby oil. Standing alone, it shows about separation of liquids, and when it is given a shake it creates a a great 'lava lamp' effect. A big pinch of glitter adds something a little extra to this bottle. I always superglue the lid shut once I am happy with the bottle, as the last thing my house needs is a glitter/oil/food colouring explosion!

As with her other sensory toys, I offer these to Isabelle every so often, and she loves to have a good shake of the bottles, a suck on the caps, and a peer at what's inside. Very simple to make, but a great way to allow little eyes to explore things they aren't able to touch.

Here was Isabelle's reaction to her Hama bead bottle...I think she likes it...