4th of July Sparkle Bottles

Happy 4th of July! Today’s the day and I have several fun activities for the 4th to share today. First, my group was very excited about making these 4th of July Sparkle Bottles yesterday.

This activity is creative yet educational. Our purpose in making them is mostly to have FUN since that’s the goal of childhood, and explore the colors of the 4th. You can also consider textures and fine motor skill development. Science is apparent too once you add water. Ask questions as you assist, like “What is your favorite color?” “How does that feel?” “Do you think that will sink or float?” to build on these concepts.

4th of July Sparkle Bottles

Supplies:

• bottles with caps, labels removed & cleaned
• buttons
• straws
• fuzzy sticks (pipecleaners)  from CraftProjectIdeas.com
• holographic glitter from CraftProjectIdeas.com
• craft foam star shapes
• metallic star garland
• curling ribbon
• mesh tube ribbon

Cut all the supplies in pieces. Arranging all the materials in a divided tray makes them easily accessible by multiple children at one time and it makes for an appealing invitation to explore.

Each child chose the materials for their bottles. I said they should start with one or two of each and then they could take more once everyone had some. Usually each child sits and we work with individual supplies at each place, on a tray to keep everything together.

Sometimes it’s good to have them work with all the same supplies and try to have them consider one another and work on a little self control. Is it okay for one child to take all the buttons? How does everyone else feel about that? What about the straws, should  he take all the red? How will your bottle look with a lot of items or just a few? Do you think you will like it if it’s full of only pipecleaners? Things for them to consider when working in a group.

Filling sparkle bottles also incorporates using fine motor skills. Most of the items supplies were easy to pick up and drop in the bottles, but the foam shapes needed to be folded and the curling ribbon was challenging. I wasn’t sure if the buttons would fit in all the bottles (they did) but I figured they could do some trial and error.

The process went quick as they were excited to select their items and drop them in the bottles. Perfect for a quick summer activity for toddlers and preschoolers with short attention spans!

After they were done putting in as many pieces as they wanted, I assisted with filling the bottles with water and adding the glitter. This time we tried the holographic glitter from CraftProjectIdeas. Wonderful! The sparkle is amazing.

After filling the bottles, I tightened the caps as tight as I could and taped them with colored Duck Tape. You may also want to hot glue them shut. Before I wrapped the tape around the caps, I put on the glittered star decorations around the neck of the bottle. Just adds something a little extra! When I gave the 2 year old his bottle back after filling it, he looked at it and whispered “fish!” So cute!

Happy 4th of July!