Baby Sensory Play – Baby Sensory Bottles

Baby Sensory Bottles

Entertaining your little ones can be tricky sometimes and the abundance of colourful plastic can be overwhelming for your baby or toddler. These easy to make Baby Sensory Bottles will give them hours of fun.

Hands up if you’ve bought a present and the box gets more attention than the actual gift. Babies and children have the most amazing imaginations and the simplest of things such as emptying the pots and pans and a wooden spoon can give hours of fun.

Not all play things have to be conventional ‘toys’ so we’re going to bring a series of ideas for sensory play and crafts to keep your baby, toddler or pre-school children entertained.

 

Baby Sensory Bottles

What you will need:

  • Clear plastic bottles
  • Rice
  • Oil (can be whatever edible oil you have in the cupboard)
  • Food colouring in colours of your choice
  • Glitter
  • Sparkly Craft Items
  • Beads
  • Superglue
  • A funnel

Shaky Sensory Bottle

Before you start you will need to colour the rice. All you have to do is measure out how much rice you will need to filling the bottle you will be using so that it’s about three quarters full and then separate it into bowls and add a few drops of food colouring. You may need to leave this for a little while so that the colour doesn’t transfer onto the bottle.

Baby Sensory Bottles

In the meantime you can choose what you would like to add to your bottle. We added a selection of coloured glitters, pom poms, coloured plastic beads and a selection of craft sequins and shapes.

Baby Sensory Bottles

Once the rice is dry, using a funnel (I used a jug as I don’t have one) add the rice to the bottle and with a bit of superglue screw the lid on. We finished this off with some coloured tape to make it extra nice.

And Shake………..

Baby Sensory Bottles

Water Sensory Bottle

For this bottle you need to fill up your bottle to about a third of the way up and add a few drops of food colouring of your choice. We added some coloured glitter to make it extra pretty. Then fill the bottle with the cooking oil of your choice leaving about an inch gap at the top. Again add a bit of superglue before screwing on the lid, and we added some coloured tape for prettiness.

Baby Sensory Bottles

AND Shake…… the water and oil will separate giving a lava lamp effect.

Baby Sensory Bottles

Baby Sensory Bottles

We’d love to see your Sensory Baby Bottles so either leave a comment with a pic or pop over to our Facebook Page and upload one.

 

Sensory Play – Cloud Dough Recipe

Cloud Dough Recipe

This cloud dough recipe is a great one to make when you haven’t got anything planned using things that you would usually have at home already.

You will need:

  • All purpose flour
  • Vegetable oil
  • Oil based food colouring or powder food colouring
  • Mixing bowl
  • A tray for play

Cloud dough can be made by mixing 1 cup of vegetable oil to 8 cups of flour.

measuring out the flour for cloud dough
Getting the flour ready

To make coloured Cloud Dough, divide the mixture between the amount of colours you require.

cloud dough in different colours
Based on this ratio we made three colours so used 1/2 a cup of oil to 4 cups of flour and mixed the colour into the oil before adding to the flour.

household items to play with your cloud dough
Once mixed, add to a tray or sensory bin and let the kids loose. Give them a selection of cutters, spoons, cups and play things and let them enjoy. We used shells, pebbles, biscuit cutters, playdoh shapes, plant pots (for making sand castles) and then added some glitter which Isabelle really enjoyed.

Isabelle playinf with the cloud dough
This is perfect for the garden and any spillages can be hosed away. This can be kept for as long as your little one will play with it and will not harm them if they have the odd sneaky taste.

The dog even got in on the action and as you can see he thought it was a tasty treat.

Don’t forget to have a look at our other Crafts for Toddlers and Kids.