F is for fine motor skills and Fireworks and Fairies
A wonderful part of a child-made discovery bottle is the fine motor work that can happen as young children use their fingers to put items in their bottles. Â Set out empty water bottles and small objects like pompoms or cotton balls and let your students use their fingers to fill up the bottles then perhaps a set of tweezers to try and pull the objects back out of the bottles. Your students will be discovering what happens as they squish up the pompoms to go into the bottle versus what happens when they let go and try to take the pompom out. Â The pompom is much more difficult to pull out then to push in and great for working with tweezers and fine motor skills…
Here’s more fine motor fun that you can do with your students!
G is for Glitter, Glue and Glow
There are different kinds of glitter that can be used in a discovery bottle. One type of glitter is the standard glitter used in most classrooms but this glitter is heavy and sinks quickly down to the bottom of a discovery bottle no matter what kind of liquid is in the bottle. Â A second type is a very fine glitter available in small bottles in the craft section at Walmart or in other craft stores.
The glitter used in the bottle below is a fine glitter – it was hard to get a good photo but fine glitter really shimmers and flows slowly and brilliantly throughout the discovery bottle. Â The bottle you see below has water, fine glitter, and glitter glue to help slow the movement in the bottle…
See this wonderful posts on how to make a Glitter Glue bottle also known as the Relax or Calming bottle by My Crazy Blessed Life.
H is for Hot GlueÂ
If I use a liquid in my discovery bottle, I almost always hot glue the lid closed. The best way to hot glue a lid closed is to put the hot glue into the lid and then screw the lid onto the bottle. For non-liquid filled discovery bottles, the decision of whether to hot glue the lid on or not is based on how I think the bottle will be used in the classroom or how old the child is that will be playing with the bottle. Â Before hot gluing a lid onto a bottle, make sure you are actually ready to permanently close the bottle up because I will tell you from personal experience that it is almost impossible to get that lid off!
I is for I Spy
A popular use of discovery bottles is to make them into I Spy games….
Some folks fill the bottles with colored or plain rice and then add a variety of objects to the rice for the children to shake around and find. Others just fill their bottles with objects (no rice) and invite the children to see what they can spy (find).
Adding the rice or other fine materials like beans, seeds, or confetti invites the children to shake the bottle and see what new object or color or shape will pop up!
J is for Jar
Remember, you don’t have to exclusively use a water bottle for a discovery bottle. For older children, you can also use a jar. Perhaps the jar might be best as a table top discovery bottle but a jar will work too…
Come back tomorrow for more tips and examples of discovery bottles or hop on over the the ABC’s of Discovery Bottles landing page!
More ABC’s…
Be sure to check out the ABC’s of School Activities by my fellow bloggers (shown below)…
SCHOOL ACTIVITIES:
- A Waldorf Mama from Triple T Mum
- After School Activities from The Educators Spin On It
- Hands-on History from Adventures in Mommydom
- Home Daycare or Family Child Card from My Buddies and I
- Homeschooling from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom
- How to Home School from In Lieu of Preschool
- Math Activities from Blog Me Mom
- Montessori from Living Montessori Now
- Science Activities & Play from Science Sparks
- Teaching Math from Montessori Tidbits
- Thrifty Teaching Tools from Kindergarten & Preschool for Parents & Teachers
