Last year, we made Halloween sensory bottles. Since we did them late and I didn’t get a chance to write anything about it, I figured I could share it with you this year! This was a fun activity I organized for the playgroup we were doing last fall. I had seen the concept a few times, but I specifically wanted to do one that was Halloween themed.
I ordered expensive water bottles off Amazon as well as filler beads. Note, any bottle will do, and we actually had to use some random bottles because we didn’t order enough of the ones off Amazon for the whole group. For the rest of the supplies, I hit up Oriental Trading, and stopped into a local craft store.
For the themed portion, we had foam beads, shaped erasers, googly eyes, buttons, and little play figures to put inside. For the figures, make sure you know how large the opening is on your bottle! The fancy VOSS water bottles had a small opening, even though they seemed like they would have a larger one.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. Shopping through these links does not cost you a thing, but helps support this blog.
What you need for your Halloween sensory bottles:
- Some type of bottle (we used VOSS plastic water bottles, but you can buy a single glass one here)
- Filler beads (16 oz or 5 lbs)
- Themed items
- assorted erasers
- pumpkin erasers
- plastic spiders
- Disney Halloween hat buttons
- Colorful filler
- Hot glue gun
- Pretty ribbon
We started by putting the filler beads into the bottles. Then, once we thought we had plenty of filler inside, we added the Halloween items.
Once we were satisfied with the appearance, we used hot glue to glue the cap onto the bottle, and then I chose to put decorative ribbon on the outside. The bottle caps have held up over the past year, but the ribbon did not stay. I’m just happy the bottles themselves have held up.
One thing that would be really fun would be to keep track of how many of each item you put inside. You could even make little cards with pictures of the witches hat, mummy, etc. You could have your child find each item in the bottle, or with an older kid, you could have them estimate how many of each thing are inside the bottle. My kids just look through to see what they can find, and shake it around to make noise.
I think I know the answer to this, but are sensory bottles bottles that are filled with things? (ie, things kids can touch?)
Sounds like a neat craft :).
They’re basically bottles that appeal to kids senses. Totally vague, right?
A sensory bin would have a bunch of things kids can touch and feel, but the bottles let you include pretty much anything while keeping it baby safe.
Very neat. I imagine this is great for quiet time or car trips.
Definitely! They have been great in the car. We don’t really do quiet time because I haven’t figured out how to make that work for us, but they could work for that as long as you don’t need literal silence!
So cool. I’m sure this could keep kids busy or a while.
I love that you took this concept to the next level and made it a halloween theme. These are really cute. I might have to make some for my Grandson.
My kids got some from a family member for Christmas and they LOVE them still. I love the idea of holiday themed ones we could take out each year. Thanks for the ideas!
Very cute! My daughters use to make something kind of like these in preschool.
Super cute!! And what a fun craft idea! my son made something similar when he was in preschool but he would have LOVED the pirate theme!
These are so fun!! I love this idea!! my son and I will be doing this during this week!! Thanks so much for sharing!
I’m so happy I stumbled upon your blog, you have some wonderful ideas.