sensory bottles

Have you ever noticed how soothing a glitter bottle is? The fascination of the slow sparkling movement mixed with color is somehow mesmerizing. It calms you down and helps you focus within just a few minutes. I can never resist picking up a glitter bottle and playing with it even if just for a few minutes, and I am a grown adult! Our Emotions Sensory Bottle blends glitter, water beads, and googly eyes to make a fun and curious way to work through big emotions. Aren’t these adorable???

If you thought that sensory bottles could only be found in the store, you are in for a treat. Nothing could be simpler to make, and these bottles can and will be enjoyed by all ages. Children can help make the bottles so they are invested in playing with them right from the start. The whole family can get involved playing games and discussing emotions whether you are around the dinner table or on a long car ride. 

How to Make an Emotions Sensory Bottle

Supplies Needed

• Glitter glue
• Glitter
• Food dye 
• Water
• Water beads
• Googly eyes
• Dry erase marker
• 4oz jars 
• Crazy glue 

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Sort out the color of water beads and put into your jars. 
2. Then add in a glitter pack to each bottle. 
3. Squirt a little bit of glitter glue into your bottles. 
4. Mix the food dye with water until you get your desired colors. Pour the water into the glass jars. 
5. Glue the lids to the jars so your child will not open it up. 
6. Add some googly eyes and draw faces to match the colors of emotions. 

Tips and Ideas for Emotions Sensory Jars

• You can add other items into your jar or use bigger jars if you would like. Emotion Beads would be a fun add! 
• Make them along your child! Let them draw the faces.
•  The crazy glue is used to glue the lid to the jars. This prevents mess, and also makes the Emotions Sensory Jars a toddler-safe activity. Please make sure younger children are always supervised!
• Use permanent marker to draw on the emotions so that the marker doesn’t come off with little hands.
• Alternatively, use dry erase markers and change the frown to a smile, etc. as you talk about changing emotions.

More Ways to Play with Emotions Sensory Jars

What really makes these jars special is that they give your child so many different ways to talk about emotions, gain emotional literacy, and work through hard emotions through pretend play. 

The bottles instantly become people and your children storytellers — use that to your advantge! Take turns telling stories about the different glitter bottles based on their facial expressions. 

Consider each bottle individually and ask your child leading questions that can’t be answered “yes” or “no”. What emotion is the green bottle feeling today?  Describe a time when you felt _____________. What do you think surprised the green bottle so much?

If you add emotion beads, or letter beads to spell out an emotion, or number beads, you can use those to extend the fun. Try to find each emotion and name it. Try to find each letter in the word (angry, happy, etc.) and put them in order on your paper. Count blessings that made you happy, name the # of things that cheer you up when you are sad, (if you find a #4, name four things that made you sad) or try to find as many different beads as you can.

Fun Books About Emotions for Parents and Kids to Enjoy Together

The Feelings Activity Book for Children. Fifty activities to help build emotional literacy. 

Little Actions Big Feelings by Aleks Swan.

In My Heart: A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek.

My Moods My Choices Flip Book 

Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang

Fun Toys and Games to Teach About Emotions

Emotions Stickers are a fun way to talk about and identify emotions and work on fine motor skills at the same time.

An exploratory way to play while learning about emotions, the Big Feelings Pineapple is also fun.

This Feelings Activity Set from Learning Resources is a great way to explore emotions while also counting, sorting, and making up stories about the little people.

A Little Spot of Emotions by Diane Alber is a series of books and we love that this set comes with Emotions Plushies too! 

Act out various emotions with pretend play and tell stories to work through hard days or past trauma with these Emotions Puppets.

Additional Content To Help Children with Big Emotions

Along these same lines, our amazing Emotions Sensory Bin or Emotions Sensory Bags helps have the same conversations in different ways. Every time you can revisit this conversation with your kids you can add or deepen neural pathways and neural connections. 

If you haven’t made one already, I highly recommend making a Calm Down Kit, and the emotions glitter bottles would be a perfect addition! This handy kit can be taken on the go and includes different items and activities, like these homemade emoji  squishies, that can help your child calm down through portable, simple, sensory play. 

How Can I Help My Child Control His Emotions is an excellent tool for parents and caregivers.

I love how easy it is to make this Pumpkin Patch Sensory Bottle with supplies from the Dollar Tree. That means it’s affordable too! Finding time to go to the store is the hardest part to this project. Once the bottle is put together, it offers your toddler, preschool or elementary child with hours of sensory exploration. 

This is such a great activity to do with your child. As long as your kiddos are past the age of choking on small things, you can even have them help put the items in the bottle for extra fun and fine motor skills work! 

Supplies for the Pumpkin Patch Sensory Bottle

• Shredded paper. We used the brown decorative shred.
• Mini Pumpkins. You can find these seasonally at craft or dollar stores.
• Pumpkin Seeds. You can usually find these either in the produce section with nuts, with the baked goods where the nuts are, or with the salad toppings. 
• Mini Hay Bales. These were from the dollar store.
• Plastic Bottle. I get mine from Amazon.

How to Put Together the Pumpkin Patch Sensory Bottle

Put layers of the various ingredients in the bottle. Be sure to leave one inch or so of empty space at the top. I recommend using super glue to attach the lid, especially if small children will be playing with the sensory bottle. This prevents messes and spills. 

What Kids Can Do with a Sensory Bottle

Sensory bottles aren’t just for looking at. They are made for shaking and finding all of the ingredients inside! The sounds of the items shaking in the bottle will actually provide sensory feedback to your child. Looking for different things in the bottle will improve visual perceptual skills and problem solving. (For example: I see an orange thing, how can I shake and move this bottle to get the orange thing to where I can figure out what it is?) You can also encourage conversation ask open ended questions about the bottle to get your child using more descriptive language and practicing conversation skills.

Why a Bottle and Not a Bin? 

I’m glad you asked! We actually do have a very fun Pumpkin Patch Sensory Bin, but the thing about bins is — it’s hard to take them with you. Slip this sensory bottle into your purse, backpack, glove compartment, lunch box, etc. and you will have it with you when you are out and about. When your child needs distracted from arguments, frustrating circumstances, long lines, waits at a doctor’s appointment, or even a long car ride — those are all the perfect time for a sensory bottle or two or three. 

Any time you need to avoid the possibility of a mess, that’s a great time to pull out a sensory bottle at home. 

Pumpkin Patch Sensory Bottle Benefits

We touched on some of the benefits earlier, but here is more thorough explanation of why sensory bottle play is a win-win for parents and kids. 

Quiet Play. If you need a moment, these bottles can give you that moment of peace and quiet. 

Visual Perceptual Skill Building. We touched on this before, but what exactly is it? 

Gross Motor Skills. Did you know that before a child can really develop or improve fine motor skills, they need to reach a certain level of large muscle controls or gross motor skill? If your child is having trouble with handwriting or scissor work, start by helping them improve in things like hopping, jumping, skipping, running, crawling, and doing simple exercises like jumping jacks. Shaking a bottle is a large muscle movement that can help with motor development. 

Verbal Development. The use of descriptive language is a skill children develop as they listen to the people around them and listen to books read out loud. You can model descriptive language to your child as you talk about sensory bottles, (or anything else in life) by using vivid adjectives, including lots of detail, and asking great questions. Reading aloud is also an important way to improve your child’s understanding of language and vocabulary development. 

Sensory Feedback. If your child craves sensory input or gets overstimulated easily when you are out and about, the noise made by that bottle might be the only thing keeping them grounded emotionally. Sensory feedback provides a solid footing for these kids in social situations. (Shout out for fidget toys too!)

More Ways to Bring the Pumpkin Patch Theme into your Day

If you want to keep that pumpkin focus, we have lots of ideas! Our PSL Sensory Bin is so much fun! We’ve also got a pumpkin slime you can make together. A Pumpkin Puffy Paint project the Fall vibes going. And then there’s this Taste Safe Pumpkin Pie Sensory Bin and our Pumpkin Pie Scented Moon Dough for even more seasonal activities your kids will love. Finish up the week by reading How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow by Wendell Minor.

Do you have toddlers to teens at home and find yourself needing a handy way to calm someone down, keep a little someone occupied in a quiet setting, or fight boredom on a long trip? You are not alone! Our Harvest Sensory Bottle is the perfect tool to have on hand this Fall when the need for distraction arises. Your children will be enthralled. 

If you haven’t read about sensory strewing before, be sure to check out that article to learn how valuable it is to just leave things like sensory bottles laying around, waiting to be discovered. Implementing this concept in your home can be life changing! That’s why I do what I do.

How to Make a Harvest Sensory Bottle

Supplies

• Sticks. Gather these from outside.
• Acorns. Gather these from outside as well. 
• Resin Pumpkins and Leaves. Found in the Halloween section at Dollar Tree or other dollar store
• Sunflowers. Found in the fall section
• Mini Fall Florals. Look for the tan spiky pieces.
• Multi-Colored Beans. 
• Plastic Bottle. I get mine from Amazon.

Steps to Make Sensory Bottles

1. Wash the jar with hot soapy water and dry it.
2. Layer the beans with the other supplies on the list. 
3. Depending on the child, you may want to super glue the lid in place. On the other hand you might want to re-use the bottle so it is up to you.

Tips to Make Your Harvest Sensory Bottle the Best It Can Be

Do not overfill the bottle. Ideally you want the items in the sensory jar or sensory bottle to be able to move around, make noise, disappear and reappear, etc.

Even young children can enjoy sensory bottles with small objects as long as the bottles are glued shut and the activity is supervised. But the cool thing is, big kids and adults enjoy them as well! 

Can’t find everything on our list? Other small items found at the Dollar store while you are there can be equally delightful. Small erasers, beads, flowers, or toys that fit with the harvest theme can be substituted! 

Clean it off first. As you gather sticks, acorns, or other small items from the outdoors, be sure to tap the sticks on the ground to shake off any loose bark or dirt that might make a mess in the bottle and rinse any dirt off of the acorns. Give everything time to dry before you make the bottle so you don’t invite moisture to the party either.

You will probably have enough supplies to make two bottles. Sharing the expense with another mom is a great idea!

How to Use a Sensory Bottle

This calming activity can quiet an over stimulated child, help someone regain focus and concentration, end tantrums or boredom, and inspire hours of quiet exploration. Here are just some of the ways one of these bottles can provide a valuable experience for your child.

Visual Perception Skill Building.

This refers to the ability to make visual connections between to options and develop an understanding of depth, spatial relationships, and positional concepts like above, below, under, and behind. 

Problem Solving

“I’m sure I just found a purple bean. I want to find it again. Let me see how to make that reappear.” These are the kinds of thoughts that come out of sensory bottle play. 

Auditory Sensory Feedback

The sound of the beans in the bottle can have a calming or stabilizing effect. It also helps exercise those auditory discrimination skills. 

Large Muscle Movement

The smaller the child, the more of a large muscle workout a sensory bottle will be, and as they shake it, move it, turn it and bang it around they will be getting all kinds of kinesthetic feedback to the central nervous system. Just remember you cannot allow free play with a sensory bottle unless you are present to supervise. Even a glued on lid can come undone. Ask me how I know! 

Harvest Sensory Bottle Expansion Activities

• Read books about Fall. Some suggestions include Leaf Man by Louis Ehlert and Fall Mixed Up.
• Rake and jump in leaves together. 
• Go on a hike in the woods to look for items in the sensory bottle. 
• Find and draw or name each different kind of item in the sensory bottle. 
• Visit a field of sunflowers.
• Talk about the four seasons.

More Fantastic Sensory Bottles to Make

We love this Thanksgiving Sensory Bottle and its the perfect time of year to buy the supplies for both this and the Harvest one at the same time. For some extra fun, make this I Spy Birds Sensory Bottle. The I Spy bottles are perfect for taking on long car rides or events that will get tedious for little ones. We have so many different sensory bottle ideas, but one more I want to specifically call out that I think you will love is the Van Gogh Inspired Starry Night Sensory bottle.