A bit about Seek and Find Bottles...!

Last year, we had a Summer Reading workshop where a very nice librarian dished out ideas for various Summer Reading activities. One thing she held up was a Seek and Find bottle - a clear plastic bottle with colored plastic bits and objects hidden inside. Since the theme was "Dig Into Reading" the idea was to have kids dig and uncover the objects by moving the tiny bits in the bottle - see? Digging...as in Dig...Into...Reading... Ha! Right?

Anyhoo... I just had a feeling that those bottle (retail between $20 and $30 or so) would be pretty easy to make at home. And wouldn't you know it, Google to the rescue!!

The tutorial I used for our first round of Seek and Find bottles was at pbs.org. The mom in question was preparing for a road trip and wanted to have something to occupy the kids in the backseat. So she made some nifty little bottles with colored rice and whatever tiny thing would fit into the opening. This is where the idea for colored rice first came from for me!

And so... the first Seek and Find Bottles were born:

Yes, a year later they are a little worse for wear. The kids have actually taken to using them as shakers and noisemakers, but every once in a while an older kid or a mom notices that there are little goodies hidden inside and...oh yeah!...there's even a giant blue list of things hidden inside tied to each one.

Due to the extreme popularity and not-so-eagerness with the sharing, another batch of Seek and Find bottles were due.

First and foremost, the rainbow rice. It is not a requirement, but it sure does look cool! The recipe for colored rice is fairly simple and can be found at a ton of blogs and websites, but here it is:

I made 3 cups of each color to spread into 6 bottles so my recipe came out something like this per bag:

3 cups plain, uncooked, white rice.
1 tbs rubbing alcohol
10 drop liquid food coloring
...and that's it.

You add all the ingredients into the bags, adding what colors you so desire and then shake the bags CAREFULLY. You do not want to drop one and have it burst all over your communal kitchen floor! Shake the bags until all the rice is the desired color - you can add more food coloring to get a bolder shade if you wish.

Then you poor the rice into an open container of some kind and bring them outside to let them dry. The rice will reek of rubbing alcohol so its best to take it outside to dry in the sun.

I accidentally left my little boxes of rice dry overnight, but I don't believe it's necessary to let them sit that long. A few hours should in the bright sun should do.

Then comes the fun part! I put each color I made (red/pink, yellow, green, purple, and blue) each into their own bottle and used the remainder of each color to make a sixth "rainbow" one. I found with the old ones that the color weren't as vibrant when constantly mixed with the other colors so, hopefully, they'll keep a stronger hue this way. We'll see

Next I basically put in whatever small plastic objects we had on hand that would fit through the top opening.

 

Once I was satisfied with the rice to hidden object ratio, I hot-glued the caps on so that no curious little hands can dump the contents onto our nice carpeted floors :-)  I made note of all the objects in each bottle, printed them onto a bright card stock page, and covered  them with contact paper to give them a little more durability. Some plain yarn to attach and VOILA! 6 more seek and find bottles!!

A note on bottles: be mindful when selecting your bottles. The ones I used are, in fact, Pepsi bottles. This does not mean I necessarily endorse Pepsi or down bottles and bottles of Pepsi a day... but when I was walking up and down the aisle at the grocery I couldn't help but notice they have a good shape to them for this project - perfectly clear and limited curving and ridges. Sold!

Another note about contents: use plastic! In the original bottles, I used foam pieces and plastic pieces both. I do not recommend foam! I'm sure it's common sense, but I really didn't think about it at the time! :-) The rice causes dust which coats eveything in the bottles - including the foam pieces. So instead of having an orange square that says "SUPER," I now have a dingy green square that says nothing legible at all. Again, plastic is best! 

So, if anyone anywhere has ever wonder what it would take to make Seek and Find bottles...well... there you have it!