I confess that none of the following bottles turned out exactly the way I hoped! But with a little improvisation, I created three autumn-themed sensory bottles for Veronika that she quite enjoyed.

For all three, you’ll need to start with a clean and dry plastic water bottle, with the lid.

I poured white rice into the first, and then sprinkled in a few hidden autumn “treasures”, like miniature gourds.

She could shake this one, which made the rice hide the gourds, then turn it until she found them. She loved playing peek-a-boo with them! I had hoped to include other fall tidbits like mini scarecrows and pumpkins, but she seemed perfectly happy with this scaled-back version.

For the second version, I filled the bottle with water and tinted it an autumnal yellow with a little food coloring. I originally intended to add leaf-shaped confetti to this one, but couldn’t find any at the store. Instead, I simply added red and yellow buttons.

These fascinated Veronika, so it worked out well! She loved shaking this one and watching the buttons settle, or turning it this way and that.

For the final version, I had originally hoped to add silk leaves. Again, no dice. But what’s better than silk leaves? The real thing!

We added handfuls of small leaves we had found on a recent walk along with a few acorns (real ones!) for sensory sound. The bottle turned out so pretty.

This one was light as a feather and made fantastic clicking noises.

She spent some time with all three of them, but the button-and-water version was clearly her favorite. In fact, she then wanted extra buttons to hold, since she was frustrated she couldn’t screw the lids off.

Between the buttons and the bottles, she kept quite busy with this activity!