When I first started teaching (about five years ago) I remember reading an article about making Discovery Bottles out of old water or soda bottles. It sounded like such a good idea! Well over the years, I have seen some great examples of Discovery bottles on other teachers websites. I finally got around to making some of my own creations this summer. This is still a work in progress, but I thought that I would show you some of the bottles that I made so far.
Here are some pictures of the bottles that I made so far.
The number bottle contains miniature number magnets that I purchased at Dollar Tree a few years ago. I used rice as the filler.
The ABC Letter Bottle contains letter beads purchased from Wal-Mart for about $3.00 (for a pack of over 100 letters). I just placed one of each letter in this bottle. I used rice and sequins as fillers in this bottle.
The Star Word bottle is my sight word bottle. I purchased already painted wooden stars from Michael’s for about $1.50 for a package of 5. I used a Sharpie to write the words on the stars. However, not all of the stars would fit in the bottle. This was a bummer, but then I thought that maybe I could make another Star Word bottle with bottle that had a larger opening. I also used sequins and rice as a filler for this bottle as well.
The Patriotic Bottle is just a little hodge-podge of some things that I had. I purchased some flag erasers at JoAnn’s Fabric Store in their dollar spot last year and I never used them, so I thought this would be cute inside. I added red food coloring and gold glitter to the water. I also added red and blue metallic stars that I picked out of some confetti that I had lying around from a graduation party!
All of the bottles are wrapped with electrical tape and I used ribbon I purchased from Target’s Dollar spot. If you would like to print the labels here they are: discovery-bottle-labels
Here is a pdf version of the above document that has all of the cute fonts I used: discovery-bottle-labels
Oops, I almost forgot to tell you–I used Avery Clear Labels template number 8663 to make the labels that are on the bottles.
Here are some links on the web for ideas to make your own Discovery Bottles:
1. Lots of pictures and great ideas! This website is no longer available, but if you use the web archive link you can still access it: Mrs. Pohlymeyers Discovery Bottles
2. Dr. Jean has a great idea for making Family Bottles at this link:
3. Dr. Jean’s Discovery Bottle Ideas. Make sure to click on the ‘Bottles to Make’ button on the left to see more ideas! Here is the link:
Dr. Jean’s Discovery Bottle Ideas
4. Check out Kinder Friend’s ideas! These are super cute! Here is the link:
Kinder Friends Discovery Bottle Ideas
5. Here is another Dr. Jean list of bottles that you can make:
Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos 