Learning bottles-how to

Many people glue the lids on their learning (discovery) bottles. If I had very small children with which to use them, I would certainly glue them as well. But since my students use them during supervised times like during our Daily 5 block and Math centers, I do not glue the lids on. Instead I fasten the lids tightly. Cover the entire lid area with a circle of a pretty fabric and secure it with a pretty color zip tie. I make sure the zip tie is as tight as can be so the lid area is secure. (A note of caution about zip ties, they can be a bit sharp on the corners of a cut off part. For this reason, I snip off the tiny corners that stick out after cutting the zip tie to the desired length.)
Now, if I decide to change the contents of a bottle for some reason, I can do so fairly easily.
                                          
The zip ties can be covered with a ribbon or ponytail holder if you want. The bottle in the top picture that has the tens frame attached to it uses a ponytail holder to attach the tens frame to the bottle. That way the student can remove the frame and mark the items found with a dry erase marker to keep track. More on the specific bottles will be posted soon.

Learning bottles -use at home

Learning bottles are soooo much fun! You can ADR them to ANY level. This year for our "curriculum night,"  I wanted to allow parents to make something to be used at home to study various. Skills. I asked each family to bring a clean, dry plastic bottle with the label removed (for the easiest label removal, please see my post pertaining to that topic.)

I gave each parent a spreadsheet of various skills the child may need to practice throughout the school year. The spreadsheet included sight words, numerals, sets of numbers, letters of the alphabet, 

Short vowel cvc words, number words etc.

I also gave each a bag containing appt 2 cups of colored rice (for tips about coloring rice please see that post.) and a paper funnel.

Parents cut the skills they wanted to practiced first at home. They alternated adding rice and slips of paper. I reminded them that they could empty the bottle throughout the year and remove the papers to add slips of paper with a new skill to be practiced.

The activity went very quickly. The children whose parents had attended were thrilled to have this special bottle at home. They thought it was neat that their parent(s) made them with me without the child being there. 

If I did this again with parents, I would have them add 4-7 toothpicks into the jar as well. This variation in the flow inside the bottle helps to pull the small pieces of paper down into the colored rice as you turn the bottle over and over. Otherwise the paper tends to come to the top and stay there.

For other learning bottle ideas, please click on learning bottles on the archive list to the right of the posts. I am going to continue to add posts about various bottles I have made and used.