I just packed up my classroom and as I did I realized how many activities, especially science and math activities I haven’t shared here. This backyard animal discovery bottle activity has been a hit in my classroom for years. It’s so simple to make and was in constant rotation on our science table. Science for preschool can range from actual experiments to simply exploring aspects of our natural world. I have lots of science activities for preschool in this post including this simple preschool science idea.
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Gather your materials. You will need some rice, green food dye, Safari Good Luck Minis or other figurines, a Voss water bottle ( plastic with the wide mouth), and access to a printer and laminator.
Start by dyeing your rice. I just pop rice in a ziplock, add some food color ( usually 4-5 drops to start) shake and when the color is even I lay it out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper until dry.
While waiting for it to dry take photos of your figurines. You can take one group photo or individual ones and use a collage software like picmonkey.com to create a collage. Print and laminate.
Add a little rice then some of the figurines. 
Repeat until all the rice and figurines are in.
Pop the top on and secure with glue and or tape.
Put the mat and bottle out together and investigate. My students love to do this in pairs. One calls out the animal from the mat and the other searches for it.
For even more preschool science ideas check out our science section here –> Preschool Science
Margie McAndrew says
I love this activity!
We do this activity with parents – sometimes as a parent child activity, with the parents and children going on a school scavenger hunt to get the items first. (good language for my special ed kiddos to ask the teacher and students of another classroom, “Do you have any _____”, using a picture list or a core language sentence strip.)
We have also done it as a parent workshop in which the parents come and make a holiday gift for their children. The parent camaraderie is great and the children love the personalized items (a truck, the letters in their name, or a Disney figure, for example). A week later, (after the children have finished the gifts for their parents) we have a family gift exchange. Nice circle of giving:)
Paige says
This is such a fun and easy idea to do with the kiddos next week! Thanks for sharing!
Paige
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