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Let’s have some super simple fun making a lava lamp sensory bottle or bag! These are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers to explore on Valentine’s Day (or really, any day)!
My kids love to make sensory bottles and sensory bags with me. They’re two activities in one, making them together, and then playing with them!
Check out our 48 Five Senses Activities for Kids to Explore All Five
How to Make DIY Lava Lamp Sensory Bottles
First, we made lava lamp sensory bottles and had Valentine’s Day in mind.
We thought we would do some “Bee Mine” sensory bottles.
Lava Lamp Sensory Bottle Supplies:
- oil (vegetable oil, canola oil, olive oil, etc)
- clear Glue (or translucent blue or clear hair gel)
- xmall loose parts to add into the bottles
- Blue & yellow bottle: little bumble bees from a game, pom poms, plastic beads, rubber vines from a lost toy, wooden craft animals, plastic butterflies, buttons
- Red & white bottle: felt hearts, little craft bumble bees (we had plastic ones from a game), pom poms, plastic beads, shiny foil hearts
- blitter
- blue & red food coloring
- clear empty bottle with a lid (water bottles would work fine)
- strong tape
For Charlie’s Bee Mine lava lamp sensory bottle we decided to create it with blue colored clear glue and a yellow oil so it was a color mixing bottle too!
We are working on “yellow and blue makes green” right now so I used this as an opportunity to continue along that with that learning groove.
Grab a free week of Sensory Bin ideas: Download them here.
How do you make a lava lamp bottle?
First step was to fill it half way up with glue (or hair gel).
Then, add the food coloring (we added blue).
Then, add in the loose parts. This was Charlie’s favorite part I think! He just loves playing with tiny things.
We still wanted to be able to see the lava lamp effect of the sensory bottle, so we made sure to only add a few of our favorite small pieces.
Then, add in the glitter!
This is obviously an optional ingredient. But we sure do love glitter here.
To finish off the sensory bottle, and to make it have the lava lamp effect, add the oil to fill up the rest of the bottle.
Older kids can try pouring in the oil. It’s great fine motor control for them. You may want to use a funnel to help guide them. And do it over the sink.
Sidenote: I wouldn’t actually recommend olive oil for sensory bottles if you have other options because it can be kind of cloudy, and plus its quite expensive. It’s usually best to use baby oil for a clear oil, or vegetable and canola oil are excellent for keeping it’s glassy consistency.
Make sure to fill it as close to the very top of the bottle as you can to make sure there isn’t a big air bubble in the middle of your lava lamp sensory bottle.
Close up the sensory bottle and screw on the lid, wipe off excess oil with a baby wipe, and seal the lid on with some strong tape!
The Sensory Bottle is Ready for Days of Play!
My son being the little monkey he is wanted to mix it up really well first thing! You can imagine what that looked like.
This can actually be a great calming down activity to watch the oil and glue settle and separate.
But we didn’t have to wait too long for the oil and glue to separate again.
For Maisie’s red and clear Bee Mine lava lamp sensory bottle we used the same process only using slightly different supplies.
I didn’t get any pictures of the making process with Maisie because I needed to be extremely focused since there was quite a few tiny parts she could have eaten when I wasn’t looking!
As I’m sure you can see by the look on her face, Maisie, at 17 months, had whole lot of fun with her lava lamp sensory bottle!
I used permanent marker to write “Bee Mine” on the red tape for an added Valentine’s Day theme.
How to Make Lava Lamp Sensory Bag
Now it was time to try out my idea in a sensory bag and see how the lava lamp effect would work there.
If you like sensory bags we have a gathered a great list of 48 of them for you here.
Turns out it was even more fun!
Check out our traditional Lava Lamps Experiment! Or check out the one without alka-seltzer tablets!
To Make Lava Lamp Sensory Bags, Grab These Items:
- sealable freezer bag (2 if you’d like to double seal to prevent leaks)
- clear baby oil
- bottle of clear glue or clear hair gel
- strong tape (like duct tape)
- food coloring
- loose parts (we used: plastic and felt hearts, plastic and wooden beads, wooden craft animals like owls, pom poms, buttons)
- glitter (optional)
Squeeze the whole bottle of clear glue into a large freezer baggy.
Add in a few drops of food coloring. Just enough to give the gel a color, but not so saturated that you can’t see through it.
Squish it all around to get the glue and food coloring all mixed up. Do this part slowly to limit the amount of air bubbles you get mixed into the thicker liquid.
And then I added my owls and Valentine’s Day themed loose parts.
You can also add any theme you want to make this lava lamp sensory bag great for any holiday or teaching theme! (Like maybe Fall or Halloween like these ones.)
Then, add in 1/2 cup to 1 cup of baby oil.
You don’t need a lot of oil, just enough to keep it easy to manoeuvre the gel or glue and keep it separating to look like a lava lamp.
Seal the freezer bag shut with as little air left in it as possible!
Lastly I wiped off any oil spills and added a strong duct tape boarder to the whole lava lamp sensory bag so the kids could play with it anywhere they wanted!
Time to Explore the Lava Lamp Sensory Bag!
This was an awesome activity!
Both Charlie and Maisie had a total blast with this for days!
They pushed things around in the sensory bag and loved the wave effect of the lava lamp!
We took it around the house and stomped and danced on it slipping a little now and then.
And they even held it up and spun it around to watch everything slowly slide down to the bottom and then flipped it around to do watch it again.
We will be repeating these lava lamp sensory activities many times for sure!
They are so versatile and so simple to put together and great for kids of all ages.
Bonus, great way to use up the odds and ends left over from other crafts and activities we have done!