Easy Apple Sensory Bottles

Last updated Monday, September 22, 2014

This week in the two- and three-year-old class, we are exploring apples! As a lover of all things autumnal, I have been chomping at the bit to start incorporating it into our activities, and I finally got my wish today. The children were fascinated and a good time was had by all…and it’s only Monday! I’ll post a recap of all our activities after the week is over, but today I wanted to share a set of sensory bottles that I made in just a few minutes for my little darlings.

Easy Apple Sensory Bottles

Aren’t they adorable? Seriously.

I made two each of red, yellow, and green. We’ll be able to use these for matching, counting, sorting, hide and seek, and all sorts of pretend play. And how fun will they be on the light table?

To make these, I used the following items (all links are Amazon affiliate links):

Round plastic craft bottles with lids
Liquid watercolors (you could also use food coloring)
Water
Glitter
Hot glue gun
Gorilla Glue or similar product
Green felt

I found my containers at either Hobby Lobby or JoAnn’s Fabrics, I can’t remember. These particular bottles are a bit thin, so if you plan on using these for throwing or rolling-type activities, you may want to use round bottles that are a bit sturdier, like these AquaBalls that we used for our All Shook Up Valentines last year. Once you’ve found your bottles, fill them with tap water, add your coloring, and then add in any other materials or trinkets you desire. I added fine glitter in matching colors- pom poms, beads, ribbons, or gems would all be fun in these, too! Once you’ve got your fillers inside, you’ll want to run a thin bead of Gorilla Glue or other type of super glue around the inside of the cap before you screw it on to keep it from being twisted off by curious hands. To complete the apple effect, I cut out a few leaves from green felt, pinched them, and hot glued them to the cap as shown. And there you have it- apple sensory bottles!