sensory bottles

I'm usually pretty great about using a reusable water bottle throughout the day -- but I had a lapse. I dipped into our bottled water stash meant for a hurricane that would make us lose our power and have no choice but to resort to plastic water bottles. I don't know how it happened. Wait. That's not true. I know just how it happened: a slew of days running ridiculously late for Stroller Strides, fighting to get Ethan's shoes on, breakfast in his belly and realizing that I'd need a bottle of water for class. It became easier to just break into our storm stash than to bother finding my reusable bottle in the mornings. I know, I know. The silver lining is that I'm back to filling up my reusable bottle and saving the plastic for a hurricane that I surely hope doesn't come and Ethan and I had a blast turning the empty plastic bottles into a craft project instead of them solely becoming trash.

Behold -- sensory bottles!

I found a few great tutorials online but mostly I just observed the ideas and customized them by using supplies we had on hand or in our kitchen. The green bottle is water, vegetable oil and green food coloring -- our lava lamp bottle. When you shake it or flip it, you can watch the tiny oil globules float their way through the water and up to the top of the bottle. The others are a mixture of water and corn syrup mixed with food coloring and whatever bits and pieces we could find in the pantry. The corn syrup helps the items travel slower through the water like they would in a snow globe.

Our favorite was the blue one which contained quinoa. The quinoa slowly floated through the corn syrup and water mixture and almost seemed to glow amongst the dark blue hue of the liquid. The grains looked like little stars twinkling around in the bottle. We filled the other bottles with pasta, brown rice and sprinkles. The sprinkle bottle -- the purple one -- was a fun one to watch as soon the sugar dissolved and the entire bottle was sparkly. This was probably Ethan's second favorite, especially when we held it up to the light and watched the glitter sparkle as it fell through the water.