Skittles and fun ideas with empty bottles

Skittles and fun ideas with empty bottles

Posted by Mena Amnour

There are many ways that you can use empty bottles and I am going to share some of these ideas with you today. Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be FUN!!

Going through my recycling bag trying to get some inspiration to create my next creative blog, I came across a lot of empty bottles! Well, there is an exciting way of using them! Skittles with a difference.

There are many ways you can use empty bottles and I am going to share some ideas today.

Standing them up in rows, you can pretend to be in a bowling alley, rolling the ball and knocking them down. Roleplay is an exciting way to engage children. Use exaggerated language and do a dance as you pretend to roll the heavy ball down the lane. Count the bottles as they fall encouraging mental maths without them knowing!

Another idea I had was to put a number on all the bottles so that when your child knocks them down they have to do a maths sum, addition, subtraction, and multiplication according to their age and ability.

You could also remove the numbers and replace them with letters. So, if you knocked down a bottle with the letter 's' you could ask the child to say something that started with that letter, making it harder according to age and ability.

Cut out disk shapes and try to throw them over the bottles like they do at the fairground.

For babies just standing them up and knocking them down is a great way to play. Baby is using hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Toddlers will enjoy this activity too. Carrying bottles is a favourite thing toddlers like doing. This develops their gross motor skills as they carry from one place to the next. To make the bottles interesting add objects inside (see my interest bottles video)

Add water in some of the bottles making them (heavy) and harder to knock down!

If you don’t have any bottles at home, try it with kitchen and toilet rolls!

Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be FUN!!