Sensory Bottles and Shakers

Oh Pinterest. Thank you for guilting me into inspiring me to do more crafting, cooking, and creating. Now that I am past my first trimester, I am feeling like I have a little more energy to do little projects again.

Care of Pinterest I came across this post from Messy Wife, Blessed Life on activities for babies from 6-12 months. One of the activities she suggests is playing with "sensory bottles" which are just water bottles with floaty things in them for babies to look at and shake and nom on, of course.

I made something similar last year which I gave to my friend's son, Sagan, as a part of the "Busy Bag" gift I put together for his first birthday. Here are the ones I made for Sagan:

For these, I added corn syrup to make the sequins flow slowly.
The tubes came from brewer's yeast James used for his homebrewed beer. 

For Calvin's sensory bottles, I bought a pack of kid-size water bottles and a bunch of little craft items to put inside. I decided to go with a rainbow theme so that I can also work on colors and color signs with him.

Pink puff balls, purple glittery puff balls, blue bigger puff balls, green glitter, yellow glitter, orange buttons, red heart sequins, rainbow square sequins, and silver star sequins.
(Sorry, I know this is not the greatest picture. James is the photographer!)

Calvin rolls them around and gathers them up like a dragon hoarding his treasure...

...But mostly he noms on the bottles. 

Here's a video of Calvin with the bottles:

For now, I don't have the caps glued on. They are just screwed on tightly. I will definitely glue them eventually - any suggestions on what kind of glue to use? I suppose as long as the glue is under the cap it won't get into his mouth? 

I also made him some "shakers" out of baby food jars and a spice jar.

Rice, quinoa, black beans, and gold jingle bells.

He's a little bit into shaking them to hear the sounds, and a lot into putting them into his mouth :)