Season sensory bottles are a fun, engaging and mess free way to teach children about the different seasons in a year and how the weather varies during each season. Each season typically has it's own unique weather and sensory experiences and I'm going to show you how to recreate them in these summer, autumn/fall, winter and spring sensory bottles.
4 SEASONS SENSORY BOTTLES
Summer is all about blue skies, bright sunshine and the occasional rain cloud. Fall, or Autumn if you're in Australia like us, is when the tree leaves start to turn orange, red and brown and fall to the ground. Winter, in most places, is cold and snowy and Spring is when everything rejuvenates and the flowers start to bloom. We're going to represent all of these elements and bring each season to life visually and kinaesthetically with our sensory bottles.
By relating the contents of each bottle to what children actually see and experience in the world outside, you can bridge the gap between indoor learning and outdoor exploration. Using season sensory bottles not only stimulates a child's tactile and visual senses, but also encourages their curiosity and cognitive skills as they hold and shake the bottles to explore it's contents. It's a hands-on, fun, and engaging way to teach children about the changing seasons and the cyclical nature of our planet.
Children can also help with making the sensory bottles, with the exception of adding the tempered water. My girls helped make all of our season sensory bottles and were so proud of them.
You will need an empty plastic bottle for each sensory bottle you're going to make. You can use empty juice or soft drink bottles, or buy empty plastic sensory bottles in many different sizes online. It doesn't matter which bottles you use, as long as the items can fit through the neck of the bottle and they can be sealed properly.
I personally prefer to use the 500ml Voss plastic bottles as I find the shape and size are great for little hands. You can buy them in bulk from Amazon.
Summer Sensory Bottle
When we think about summer, especially for us here in Australia, we immediately think of hot days and the bright sunshine. So we decided the summer sensory bottle should represent a blue summer's day with some clouds and the sun shining bright in the sky.
To do this we've used blue water beads, white cotton balls and a large yellow pom pom. Follow our instructions to make your own summer sensory bottle. If you don't want to use water beads, there's alternative ideas included in the post.
Autumn / Fall Sensory Bottle
Fall {or Autumn if you're in Australia like us} is typically characterised by trees losing their leaves and large piles of red, orange and yellow leaves on the ground.
To recreate both the leaves falling slowly, and them piling up on the ground, I used maple leaf nail glitter sequins, water and glue. Once it's shaken up the leaves start to slowly fall from the top of the bottle to the bottom into a pile. Follow the instructions to make the fall sensory bottle here.
Winter Sensory Bottle
Winter where we live in Australia is pretty mild and we don't get cold enough for snow, however I know the majority of the world has snow for winter so we decided to make a falling snowflake sensory bottle to represent winter.
Making the snowflakes fall slowly in the bottle is actually really easy using snowflake confetti and the right amount of glue. See exactly how we made our winter sensory bottle here, you can also see the snowflakes falling in the video further below.
Spring Sensory Bottle
Rounding out the four seasons is spring, when all the flowers start to bloom, the bees are out in full force and the birds start nesting. We decided to make a flower sensory bottle to represent spring.
Because real flowers wilt and brown, we chose to use fabric flowers so they'd stay fresh and wouldn't get damaged being suspended in water in the sensory bottle. The spring sensory bottle is the easiest of all the season sensory bottles to make and isn't designed to be shaken as such, however the flowers do float around in the water as the bottle is gently moved around.
More Sensory Bottles
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