Sensory Bottle With Hand Sanitizer | DIY Sensory Bottle

Can you make a sensory bottle with hand sanitizer? Learn more about sensory bottles via this article and spend time with your kids enjoying this fun activity!

What Is A Sensory Bottle?

Sensory bottles are containers that calm the mind and are filled with different kinds of materials. They are a great way of non-messy sensory plays. Sensory play is often referred to as and is often thought of as the “messy plans”. They allow children to improve their fine motor skills by using their senses to understand the world. Sensory bottles can come in all shapes and sizes. You can make sensory bottles with different materials, including glitters, stars, confetti, etc. It is a unique hands-on way of exposing the kids to the beautiful world around them. It also allows their brains to make essential connections. There are many different names by which sensory bottles go. They are popular with discovery bottles, sensory jars, calm down jars, and many more names to add to it. But can you make a sensory bottle with hand sanitizer? Let’s see!

Uses of Sensory Bottle

Sensory Bottles are an excellent way for kids to explore their fine motor skills and can be used for the following purposes:

1. Enhancing Senses

They can allow kids to understand and narrate the sounds made by the sensory bottles, the size and the feel of the bottles like light weighed or heavy weighed or when one shakes the bottle how quickly or slowly the materials come down. The bottle provides visual and auditory senses.

2. Math Skills

The children can count the stars or the different materials in the sensory bottles or count the time in which the bottle settles down to normal.

3. Science Skills

The kids can watch the glitter move around, fall, and move while the bottle is shaking. In the meantime, you can explain the science behind the materials floating inside the bottle.

4. Fine Motor Skills

Putting different materials into the sensory bottle can be a challenge for kids but a fun activity. This is an excellent motor skill practice for them. 

5. Language Skills

The kids can use descriptive language to explain what they feel while playing with the sensory bottles, how the stars and glitter look like, and what sizes the stars are. Kids can also practice their conversation skills. Parents can ask children about their sensory bottle at bedtime and talk about how it makes them feel.

Besides, one can try making different kinds of sensory bottles with only water or only sanitizer, or a mixture of both. Kids can compare and contrast how the material falls in each of these bottles.

Sensory Bottle With Hand Sanitizer

Here are some methods for making a sensory bottle with hand sanitizer.

Method 1

Ingredients

1. Water bottle 
2. Green hand sanitizer
3. Confetti (preferably different size and colors)

Procedure

1. To make this sensory bottle, pour hand sanitizer into the top of an empty water bottle. 
2. Do not fill the hand sanitizer all the way to the top.
3. Next, add the confetti or other materials to the bottle.
4. Now put the lid and screw it tight.
5. Seal the lid of the sensory bottle with superglue.
6. Allow the glue to dry thoroughly.
7. Let the superglue dry for at least 15 minutes.

Method 2

Ingredients

1. Plastic water bottle
2. 5-10 foam stars (glitter gold)
3. ¼ Cup holographic glitter (royal blue)
4. ¼ Cup glitter (royal blue)
5. 1 Cup hand sanitizer
6. 1 Cup water
7. Funnel
8. Superglue

Procedure

1. Take an empty bottle and dry it thoroughly.
2. Using a funnel, add hand sanitizer and water to the sensory bottle in equal proportions.
3. Add the foam stars to the mixture of the hand sanitizer and water.
4. Now add the glitters into the bottle with the funnel.
5. Seal the lid of the sensory bottle with superglue or hot glue.
6. Allow the glue to dry completely for at least 15 minutes.

Method 3

Ingredients

1. 1 cup of organic rice
2. Hand sanitizer
3. Tiny toys
4. Funnel
5. Glue gun 

Procedure

1. Take an empty bottle.
2. Pour hand sanitizer and water into it.
3. Now add the rice and tiny toys into the bottle.
4. Don’t fill the bottle to the top. 
5. Fill only two-third of the bottle so the kids can shake it to discover the items inside.
6. Screw the lid onto the bottle.
7. Use superglue or glue gun to seal the lid of the bottle.
8. Let the glue dry completely and wait 15 minutes before starting to play with the sensory bottle.

How To Use A Sensory Bottle

Sensory bottles are a great way to help calm the kids who are overstimulated or may dislike the touch of others. By shaking the bottle, the children can get alert to hone their fine motoring skills. If the children can see the materials of the bottle slowly fall back after a vigorous shaking can help calm the breathing of the kids and help to re-regulate them emotionally. 

Ask your kids to lightly shake the bottle with soft pressure and put it upside down on a flat platform surface. Next, ask them to sit back and enjoy the motions inside the sensory bottle!

Tips and Tricks for Making Sensory Bottles 

1. Do not fill your DIY sensory bottles to the top but only till two-third of its capacity. Depending on the type of bottle, add more glitter or pieces to your sensory bottle.
2. Do not shut the lid immediately. Get rid of any extra bubbles first.
3. Take all the air out of the DIY homemade sensory bottle before closing the lid.

We hope you will try making a sensory bottle with hand sanitizer with your kids for a fun evening activity. Let us know your experience in the comments section.