“TV.  If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six. Open your child’s imagination. open a book”  ~Author Unknown

One of the things I love most in the world is the feel and smell of a book waiting to be read. I have stacks and stacks of books stashed in every nook and on every shelf in my home. Even the floor has a few piles. I dream of having a library like the one Beast unveils for Belle when she comes to stay at his castle…with a ladder and everything! One of the best things about being a mother, is hearing my kids read for the first time. Their “sounding out” attempts are music to my ears. I am so excited, as I know the world that is about to open up for them. The nights they won’t get to sleep til the wee hours because they just can’t put that book down. The batches of cookies they will burn because they didn’t hear the oven beep over the din of the battle going on in their story’s pages. Oh, and the “empty” they will feel when a treasured book is finished…the heart aches, doesn’t it?

Well, one day I “happened” to be on Pinterest {wink}, and I came across a pin for  Sight Word Discovery Bottles, by Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas. I loved the ideas right away. Even the pre-readers would enjoy the bottles, if even just to shake and make noise!

To cater to my smaller children, I gave the bottles each a theme to prompt them in learning which “kind” of words were in each bottle. I even added some visual prompts…little plastic toys that went along with the theme of each bottle. I chose a book from our shelves for each bottle so the children could find the words in the books AND the bottles and match them up. This is our farm animal bottle. It is filled with split peas, double-sided, laminated farm words, and little plastic farm animals. It is paired with a baby farm animal board book. This pair is a favourite among the toddlers. We find the words and make the animal sounds together.

This is our zoo animal bottle. It is filled with coffee beans and plastic toy animals. I paired it with a Little Einstein’s first words board book.

This is my favourite bottle. Mostly because it’s paired with my favourite Dr. Seuss book, My Many Colored Days. We read this book a lot. We use it in our yoga class. And now we use it in our book bin. The bottle is filled with coloured pasta and sparkly sequins. When we find the colour words in the bottle, we “act out” the colour’s feeling in the book. Oh, it’s a fun one!

This is our bug bottle. Most popular with the boys. I paired it with a non-fiction bug facts book with beautifully drawn illustrations. The bottle is filled with blue rice, barley, split peas, and plastic insects.

And finally, our ocean themed bottle. It is filled with blue rice, little seashells, and a few plastic whales and sharks. I paired it with Eric Carle’s, A House for Hermit Crab, but you could pair it with any underwater, “ocean-y” book you like. We just like this one especially.

The bottles are simple and easy to assemble. Just add a bit of filler, then a few words, some more filler, some more words, and more filler, until the bottle is about 3/4 full. You don’t want to fill them too full or there will be no room to manipulate them in order to see the words. I laminated my sight words, but I find they are a bit slippery, and may have worked better on just plain paper. Do write the words on both sides of the paper, though. Children get frustrated with these bottles if the words are too stubborn to show themselves! Oh, and a wider mouthed bottle works best if you are adding little plastic props to the bottles. I used G2 and Vitamin Water bottles.

The possibilities for these little bottles are endless. I am already thinking of my next one…GOODNIGHT MOON!! I just have to find all the little plastic props to go in it! It’s not easy finding little chairs and a toy house that will fit inside a bottle!

I hope you get to make some of these simple bottles for the “smalls” in your life. It is so fun to hear them exclaim, “CAT!! I READ CAT!” It never gets old.

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh, and check out this link at JDaniel4’s Mom, for more book-related activities!