Ocean Sensory Bottle for Kids

The ocean is such a wonderful topic to learn about. 

It explores the ocean animals, reefs, and natural habitats of where these creatures live and coexist. 

It is such a fascinating topic that children absolutely love! 

There are books about the ocean, lessons and printables about the ocean and so many amazing resources out there that teach about the ocean. 

If you are near the ocean, what a beautiful thing. 

You can take your LO to explore and learn about different ocean animals that pop up on the shore and spend a beautiful day out in the summer breeze. 🙂 

Here is a simple and easy activity you can try whether you are in a school setting or just right at home with your littles. 

Bring a piece of the ocean to you and learn about the different colors and more with this simple ocean in a bottle activity! 

Related: Here is an epic ocean sensory bag we made around the same time I made this simple ocean bottle for my kids! 

Ocean Sensory Bottle Video Below:

Supplies: 

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• Recycled Voss water bottles or Craft Bottles

• Ocean Foam animals

• Blue Water Beads

• Baby oil/regular olive oil 

• Water

• Blue food coloring 

• Hot glue gun (to close and secure the bottle top)

And, you can improvise with this ocean sensory bottle by including other manipulatives you may already own. 

For example, if you have blue pom poms, you can use those to learn about the color blue and incorporate pretend play as our ocean. 

How I put together these DIY Sensory Bottles

Here are the steps I took to create these easy ocean themed sensory bottles: 

• I want to clarify there are no measurements I took to include the olive oil. 

• I did however add half a bottle of water in each sensory bottle at first. 

• Then, I added a bit of water beads into one and foam ocean animals into the other. 

• Insert a bit of food coloring (I chose blue food coloring. Tip: a little goes a long way.)

• Add your olive oil. You don’t have to add the other half with olive oil. You can add a little bit and then fill the rest of the bottle with water. 

• The olive oil is just there so things flow easier on the inside. 

• Use a hot glue gun to close the lid of the bottle tightly shut and to keep it extra secured. 

• Voila! You’ve two DIY ocean water bottles! 

Ocean themed science experiments

Ocean science for kids is so much fun! 

Because I used a bit of olive oil and water together, you can also incorporate a bit of science into your lesson plan by asking one simple question: 

“Do water and oil mix?”

And, clearly the answer is no. 🙂 

The mixture of water and oil almost look like a blobs in a bottle science experiment which is fascinating for children who are learning about this! 

Some may call this experiment a diy lava lamp sensory bottle. 

Ocean in a bottle experiment explanation:

I like to call it a simple STEM experiment of how two liquids “do not mix”! 🙂 

If you add a bit of food coloring to your water and then a little bit of olive oil you will see that the olive oil does not in fact turn the color of the food coloring! 

Pretty neat, eh? 🙂 

Note: I tried the colored mineral oil/ olive oil method but the color seeped straight into the water and that didnt work! 😀 

I hope you give this simple plastic bottle craft ideas experiment a try and enjoy the sensory play involved with this simple and easy sensory bottle idea! 🙂