Babies & Toddlers

Wonder Bottles

Stimulate your baby's senses with toys you make yourself.

What you need:

• empty plastic soda bottles (20-ounce size)
• super glue
• corn syrup
• food coloring
• water
• baby oil
• dishwashing liquid
• small jingle bells
• beads and/or beans

What to do:

  1. Wash plastic soda bottles and remove any labels.

  2. Fill bottles with different materials: 1 inch of corn syrup and a few drops of food coloring; water mixed with dishwashing liquid and food coloring; 1/3 baby oil and 2/3 water (add food coloring to water); small bells, beans, and so forth.

  3. Secure the caps tightly with superglue and let dry.

  4. Playing with the bottles is an excellent opportunity to support language development. Point out what your child is seeing: "See the blue color drip down the sides of the bottle? It is moving very slowly." Or "When we shake the bottle, we can see lots of bubbles!" Or even "Can you hear the jingling noise?"

Learning Benefits

• enhances language development
• supports observation skills