Calming the Child Storm: Fun Sensory Calming Bottles

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Just like you, we’ve seen all these fun sensory/calm down bottles online and decided we needed to try them out!

We’ve been studying the story of Jesus calming the sea, and to help demonstrate to our little ones, we shook up the bottles to simulate the storm and watched the water calm down. Of course, Jesus can calm things instantly, but we can calm things too: like ourselves! We told the kids that these bottles can help them to find a calm spot when they’re feeling upset, and it will help remind them to calm down and be still.

And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
2But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!

Matthew 8:23-27

We tried several different methods: water/glue, corn syrup, baby oil, and liquid soap. Voss water bottles work great because they’re so pretty, but any bottle will work!

Water/Glue

Whisk together about 3 ounces of glue (clear, glitter, color, glow in the dark, something fun!) with about 2 cups of hot water, 1-2 tablespoons of glitter, and food coloring to complement your glitter choice. This one was easy, but fine glitter is best as it sinks more slowly through the solution. More glue helps if it’s too thin. Just be sure to whisk it after adding more glue, don’t whisk before putting it in the bottle the clumps might stay!

Baby Oil

This one floats a little better than the water, but our water-based food coloring didn’t mix well with the oil, so while fun, it looks funny after sitting awhile and requires more effort to shake up.

Soap

For this one, we did about half clear soft soap and half water, plus food coloring and glitter. This is heavier than the glue or oil ones, and shakes easily.

Corn Syrup

This is about 80-90% corn syrup and 10-20% water. It is the thickest and works well with these alphabet beads! But, as a result, it’s the biggest work out to shake up. Very pretty and fun!

BONUS!! Then, just for good measure, we tried our favorite water beads in the bottles. This actually might be our favorite bottle! These water beads are awesome, but it turns out clear ones that you can dye any color you want are even more fun!