Jesus Calms the Storm: Sensory Bottles for Babies and Toddlers

I've been doing a little bit of experimenting with sensory bottles this week as I wanted to make some to help under 5s to explore the story of Jesus Calming the Storm.  Sensory bottles are great!  They're easy and cheap to make and provoke a lot of wonder-even in the adults who play with them!  Children can use them in a very reflective way, watching the shapes and colours and we've used them before in prayer activities for over 5s.

Here's what I've made so far...

1. Water, green glitter and blue seed beads
2. Rice and matchsticks (to make rain/ storm noises)
3.Water, blue and green sequins and blue and green mini Pom-poms 
4.Water, coloured with a little bit of blue food colouring  (filled to just over half way up the bottle), topped up to the top of the bottle with baby oil.
5. Baby oil, blue and green sequins and blue loom bands.

As you can see, the idea was to keep with a blue/green 'water' theme. The baby oil and water mix is great as there is a clear separation of the two after the shaken mixture comes to a rest.  Baby oil looks like water from the outside, but slightly slows down the sinking of the objects.

With slightly older children, it's interesting to see what sinks and what floats and the separation of the oil and water is a great way to think about Jesus bringing calm to the storm.  Can't wait to use them!