Word Bottles

I came across this Idea on Pinterest and thought I had to try it out on Abigail.  Its been a huge hit and great for early reading skills like putting sounds together.
Its very simple to make and very cheap too.
You need a plastic bottle, This can be any size. I happened to have a large 1ltr bottle ready for the recycling so used that. Then some kind of filling. I used rice but I guess you could use anything small enough to fit through the neck of the bottle. Split peas, lentils etc would work just as well.
I chose to colour the rice to make it more fun and I think it works well.

To colour the rice:

1 cup of plain white rice.
2 tbsp of white vinegar.
food colouring.
freezer bag.
Wax paper.

Place the rice into a freezer bag. In a separate pot mix the white vinegar and a few drops of your chosen food colouring. The colour strength depends on how many drops you add.
Pour the mixture in the bag then seal making sure you get as much air out of the bag as possible. Mix the rice into the colour until its all coloured.
Pour out the rice onto a tray lined with wax paper and leave until its dry.

Add the coloured rice into the bottle. I used 4 different colours for my rice.
Then add appropriate words of your choosing. I chose mostly simple 3 letter words as Abigail is a pre-reader. I printed mine off on paper and laminated them but you could easily just write them out of hard card. Remember not too big though as they need to fit through the neck of the bottle.
You could also adapt this to include numbers instead/as well.

When you've added your words then replace the bottle top. Make sure the top is screwed on VERY tightly!  You could add a few drops of super glue if you wanted to be sure.

Give the bottle a shake and then discover the words. Abigail loved this and took it to Nursery for a few days to show off. The teachers loved this idea and plan to add some to the Nursery for all the children.