Patriotic Memorial Day and 4th of July Sensory Bottle

Show your patriotic spirit with a DIY red white and blue stars sensory bottle. A super fun calm down jar for the 4th of July!

Calm down sensory bottles are most often used as a calm down tool for children, they are just as effective for adults. To learn more about them check out calm down sensory bottles 101.

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DIY Red White and Blue Stars Sensory Bottle

DIY Red White and Blue Stars Sensory Bottle: Materials

• Recycled water bottle (We like Voss bottles)
• Goo Gone
• Red, white and blue star-shaped pony beads
• Water
• Glue

 

My goofball daughter playing with her 4th of July sensory bottle 

DIY 4th of July Sensory Bottle: Tutorial

1. Peel off the label on the water bottle. Use Goo Gone to remove any remaining residue.

2. Drop red, white and blue star-shaped pony beads into the empty bottle. You can also use regular red, white, and blue pony beads. We used 50, one for each state (see learning opportunities below). We used 17 red, 17 blue, and 16 white stars.

3. Fill the bottle all the way to the top with water.

5. Screw on the lid and play with it for a day or two to make sure you are happy with it. It’s hard to add more stars later when the caps glued on.

6. Glue the lid on once you are sure you don’t want to make any more changes to your red, white and blue stars sensory bottle.

DIY Patriotic Sensory Bottle: Learning Opportunities

I like to make calm down sensory bottles with children as a teaching aid. Putting together this patriotic sensory bottle created 3 main learning opportunities for my daughter. Bonus points if you can think of one we missed. I’d love to hear it in the comments below. 🙂

Science Learning Opportunity

Making a sensory bottle with star-shaped pony beads and water is a great opportunity to learn about scientific concepts such as weight and density. Begin by placing the red, white and blue starts in a 1-quart measuring cup filled with water to see what happens. Do the stars sink or float? We found that most of the stars sank while others floated and that turned into another opportunity to learn why some sunk while a few floated. Can you figure it out?  Hint: Did the star pony bead hole fill with water?

Patriotic/History Learning Opportunities

I decided to include a total of 50 stars in this bottle to represent each state. This provided an opportunity to learn about our country and its history.

Math Learning Opportunities

In order to use 50 stars, they must be counted. This is your opportunity to add in some math concepts. Because my daughter can easily count to 50 I decided to add in some skip counting. We ended up making piles of 5 stars each. This lead us to wonder if we could have an even amount of red white and blue stars which brought up the concept of division and… you get the idea. We ended up using 17 red, 17 blue, and 16 white stars because my daughter wanted them as even as possible.

My daughter loves exploring the inner workings of her patriotic sensory bottles up close! lol

Have fun making these with your kids. Meet them where they are and follow them in their learning and you can’t go wrong!

 

Show your patriotic spirit with a DIY red white and blue stars sensory bottle. A super fun calm down jar for the 4th of July!

Calm down sensory bottles are most often used as a calm down tool for children, they are just as effective for adults. To learn more about them check out calm down sensory bottles 101.

If you liked this 4th of July sensory bottle, you may also like this DIY Butterfly Sensory Bottle or this Frozen-Inspired Sensory Bottle. Click on the links to check them out!

To learn more about Rhythms of Play click on the link!