Create an ocean in a bottle using a few basic household ingredients! Then let your kids shake it up and watch the magic happen over and over.
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In an attempt to keep my kids entertained and engaged this summer as well as retain some of my sanity, I’m trying to stick with simple activities and projects that don’t take too much time to prep. This ocean in a bottle experiment completely fascinated my kids and they kept coming back to it throughout the day to shake their bottle up and watch the glitter swirl and the water and oil separate. It took me less than five minutes to gather the supplies and five minutes more to help each of them create their own ocean in a bottle.
How to Make an Ocean in a Bottle
See? Super simple and it uses things you already have at home. #doublewin
To make your own ocean in a bottle, grab a bottle that has a lid. We used some regular size plastic water bottles, but you could also make these out of mini water bottles or a 2-liter bottle. The idea is that you want a container that is see through and resealable.
Next fill it about 1/3 to 1/2 full of water. Squeeze a few drops of food coloring into the water, reseal the lid and shake it around. Then, use a funnel to pour some glitter into the bottles, reseal the bottle and shake that around as well.
Now, grab your vegetable oil and fill the bottle up to the top and reseal. (I’d recommend gluing the lid on so it can’t be reopened.)
Lastly, shake it up! My kids loved trying to get the water and oil to mix, only to watch it separate. The glitter added a fun aspect to it because they could see the movement of the water and oil.
Besides just letting your kids watch the water and oil mix and separate, you could also use the ocean in a bottle for:
- A fun and simple kid science experiment where you talk about why water and oil don’t mix.
- Incorporate it into your home school curriculum.
- Use it as a calm down bottle.
- Treat it like a timer where you shake it and your child has to try and beat it or finish a particular chore before it separates again.
Also, because this is the second Wednesday of the month, that means it’s time for another round of Inspire My Creativity! If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you know that once a month I join up with 15 other crafty and creative bloggers to share a project with you based on a theme. This month the theme is the color BLUE and I have to say that I’ve been really impressed with all the projects that have been shared so far. I encourage you to check out the links below and get inspired!
11 Comments
I always love projects that I have all of the ingredients for and especially love them when they have a science twist!
We made these last Summer and they are SO easy and so fun!
This looks like so much fun! My nephew would love this!
This is a great activity for young children. And i love that it takes things that I already have.
So fun to make crafts together in the summer. Anything to get them engaged an off the screens!
Oh that's nice…will try this for sure 😀
So fun! I bet this would keep my toddler very entertained
How fun! We made these during ocean week for my camp, but we used baby oil instead of cooking oil. The whole room smelled like babies, lol. Since we used 2 1-liter bottles, we have kept them on display all summer and the kids just love to shake them up and let them settle over and over again. -Marie
What a fun idea! Maybe my kids will put down their screens and make these with me!
My girls would love these! Definitely on the list of to-do's.
I totally need to make these with my kids. Its simular to making a DIY kids lava lamp which my kids loved.