Solar System Sensory Bottle

Ready to blast off to outer space for this week’s Virtual Book Club for Kids? We’re sharing a solar system sensory bottle inspired by How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers. It’s such a calming way to learn about the planets. Be sure to check out all of the space themed ideas. Affiliate links are included in this post.

What You’ll Need:

Plastic bottle or jar
Water
Safari Ltd Solar System
Glitter (CraftProjectIdeas.com sent us ours)
Washable liquid watercolors or food coloring

Choose a plastic bottle or jar. We like the Voss water bottles. A clean peanut butter jar (like we used for our Dream Snow sensory bottle) works great too.

For this solar system sensory bottle, I chose to make it simple and fill it with water. You can use a more viscous liquid like mineral oil to slow the fall of what’s in the bottle. The planets I chose still fell pretty quickly in the mineral oil so it’s not worth the expense or the mess. Just go with water. It makes it easy.

Add a little purple color with washable liquid watercolors or food coloring. I used 3 drops of blue liquid watercolor and 2 drops of red liquid watercolor. You can also use food coloring but be warned it has the potential to stain clothes.

Drop in some glitter. Small stars would also be a nice addition.

Now it’s time to add the planets to the sensory bottle. I used the Safari Ltd Solar System set. It has the 8 planets and the Sun.

Saturn is almost too big for the Voss bottle, so you’ll need to squeeze its rings down and then push it into the bottle.

Replace the cap and shake the bottle.

Lily just loves watching the glitter fall. Then, she shakes the bottle and watches it fall again. We talked about the features of the different planets.

Watch the solar system sensory bottle in action.

This would be perfect to pair with our DIY Planets Board Game. Print out the planet fact cards and learn more.

More Space Themed Ideas for Kids

How to Make Straw Rockets (with Printable Rockets and Moon Target) – inspired by Dragons Love Tacos 2: the Sequel
Out of This World Space Toys and Gift for Kids
Space Slime – two ingredient glittery stretchy fun

More Activities from the Virtual Book Club for Kids

See more space themed activities inspired by How to Catch a Star:

Building Space Words – My Storytime Corner
Star Blends Puzzles – Sea of Knowledge
DIY Cardboard Space Shuttle – Mama Smiles
Shooting Star Spinner Toy- Teach Beside Me
Edible Mars Soil Space Experiment – Preschool Powol Packets
Printable Constellation Mats by JDaniel4’s Mom
Create Your Own Star Stamps by The Educators’ Spin On It

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