Add this easy and engaging Christmas sensory bottle to your list of Christmas activities for preschoolers and kindergartners today!
You don’t need much to get the Christmas sensory jar started, and you can easily make adjustments to it based on your supplies and your kids’ interests. Depending on your students’ ages and needs, they can even join in on the bottle-making fun!
I love that the Christmas pom pom sensory bottle is made of dry ingredients. This allows you and the kids to use it in multiple ways without worrying about wet materials. And you’re able to add more learning opportunities to the discover jar as you see fit.
The colors and shine make the Christmas discovery bottle incredibly inviting to children. And it’s very simple to pair it with other Christmas sensory play ideas during the holiday season.
Christmas Sensory Bottle
Now, let’s get a look at creating your own version of this holiday sensory bottle. Before I do that, I want to remind you that you can switch things up!
Don’t stress if you don’t have exactly the same materials we used here. Or if you don’t like all of the supplies we used.
How to Prep the Pom Pom Sensory Bottle
Start off by grabbing the materials you need to make the Christmas sensory bottle. Here’s what we used (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
- Clean, dry, empty bottle
- Red, green, and white pom poms
- Jingle bells
- Christmas foam shapes
- Plastic snowflakes
- Mini ornaments
- Large gold and silver confetti dots
- Snowflake confetti
Once you have the supplies you need, it’s time to assemble the Christmas pom pom sensory bottle. You can do this ahead of time as a surprise for the kids, or you can have them help you. It’s super simple:
- Make sure the jar is indeed clean and dry.
- Then add the preferred materials to the bottle.
- Finally, put the lid on it.
If you care for children who are still putting things in their mouths, I recommend sealing the top shut. You can do this with glue or tape.
How the Kids Can Use the Christmas Sensory Bottle
Now that the holiday discovery bottle is ready to go, what do you do? Call the kids over and let them explore it, of course!
As with all things sensory, this is an open-ended activity. Which means that the children will make all the decisions when it comes to playing with the Christmas sensory bottle (within your parameters, of course).
Here are some things you might see:
- Kids rotating the bottle to look at everything inside it.
- Some children holding the jar up to their ear and shaking it to hear the bells.
- Students trying to count all of the pom poms in the jar.
- A few children rolling the bottle along the floor, watching the materials move and listening to the bells jingle.
- If permitted, kids opening the bottle and pouring it into a bin. Only to turn right back and reassemble it a few minutes later!
Those are just a few of the ways children might interact with the Christmas sensory bottle. You’ll likely see some explorations I haven’t listed here, and that’s okay! It’s always fun to observe the kids as they get into new materials and activities.
What Do Kids Learn with Sensory Bottles?
In addition to being fun, and there’s nothing wrong with planning activities that are “just” fun, kids can learn a lot with sensory bottles. In fact, you can use discovery jars to teach almost any early learning skill! The sky really is the limit.
Here are some skills and concepts young children are learning with this Christmas sensory bottle:
- Color identification
- Visual discrimination
- Vocabulary related to their senses
- Counting
- Sensory exploration
- Cause and effect (if I shake the bottle, it makes the bells move and make sound)
If you want to add even more learning concepts, you can! Here are some ideas:
- Make multiple bottles, with more bells in one. Have the kids compare the sounds of the bottles.
- Add letter beads to the jar. Challenge the children to find every letter in their name. Or have the kids record the letters they find on a piece of paper.
- Do the same as above but with small number manipulatives.
- Create an I spy paper for the jar. The children can record how many pom poms, bells, etc. they find in the Christmas sensory bottle.
- Ask the children to use the materials to make patterns (if they’re allowed to open the jar).
- Encourage the kids to create a graph of the bottle’s materials.
Okay, I could go on and on, but I’ll stop there. How will you use the Christmas sensory bottle with your students?
Be sure to save this post for future reference. If you have a Christmas Pinterest board, that’s a great place to start. A Sensory Pinterest Board would be perfect, too.
More Christmas Ideas for Kids
If you’re looking for more activities to try after the Christmas sensory bottle, I’ve got you covered:
- Fingerprint Christmas Lights Frame (see it in action below:)
North Pole Dramatic Play Pack
Let Preschool Teacher 101 save you so much time with fully-developed early childhood resources! We have lesson plans, classroom management guides, digital games, name writing practice, and so much more. Our membership, The Pack, is perfect for preschool and kindergarten teachers looking for a year that’s more focused on teaching kids than losing personal time to planning.
I think our North Pole Dramatic Play pack would be great alongside the Christmas sensory bottle. It has so many ideas to really inspire the kids’ imaginative play. Click on the image below to get your own:
We have a lot more Christmas resources available. Here are a few more to check out, just click on the images:
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers.
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