It seems like every child goes through a major “farm” stage somewhere between the age of one and five. My children sure did and are still loving every farm related craft, small world, book or activity. And that’s a good thing since we’ve collected quite a substantial amount of farm related Playmobil … we need to make it count! I keep trying to come up with new fun and exciting little farm related project and this amazing farm discovery bottle is our latest hit. Scroll down to see the details!

How to Put Together a Farm Discovery Bottle

Putting together a farm discovery bottle could not be easier once you have a few basic ingredients.

You’ll need a bottle to start with. I found a simple water bottle in our local dollar store and I know a lot of my friends in the US use Voss bottles. Any sturdy plastic see through bottle should be fine.

To fill the bottle I used chickpeas, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and corn kernels. I recycled these from our winter sensory box. They’ve been put to use here and there for months now! I loved the idea of using corn specifically as it’s a common crop grown and used on farms. The color scheme also felt very ‘farm like’ to me. Feel free to use what you like or what you have in your cupboard.

Lastly I added a couple of Playmobil animals, veggies, fruits and some eggs to the mix for the kids to discover.

We experimented a bit with how much filler needed to go in the bottle and how many figurines we should add. As you can see on the images, we settled on what we thought was a happy medium. We chose to leave some space at the top so it would be easier to shake and move everything around a bit. When the bottle is filled to the top, you can’t do that anymore. If you’re wanting everything to sit still, it would work perfectly well to fill it right up! Try it out and see what works best for you.

Ways to Play with the Farm Discovery Bottle

When playing with our new farm discovery bottle I was pleasantly surprised that this one little item managed to entertain our entire family of five!

• The baby loved rolling and chasing the farm discovery bottle. He enjoyed trying to shake it and I guess was just plain mesmerized by the sounds and things moving in there.
• Mister T (3) and Miss Glitter (6) took turns challenging each other to find certain items within a certain time frame. They also tried hiding items for each other, which was a bit harder to do!
• Both the older kids loved it when we played together and I would ask them to count the apples, name the fruits and vegetables or tell me what the animals in the bottle eat in real life.
• Even my husband joined in and spent 15 minutes looking for the golden apple before throwing in the towel, grabbing a beer and casually claiming there was never a golden apple in there in the first place. Ha!

There IS a golden apple in there by the way … can you spot it??

For the Love of Farms

The farm theme is such a grateful one. Aside from all the crafts and activities you can do, it’s fairly easy to visit a farm or a petting zoo with farm animals in real life, which most kids LOVE!

Earlier this year we made this farm small world with fabric scraps and put together an Old MacDonald story basket which was a lot of fun. What kind of farm related activities have been popular with your kids? I’d love to hear!

Ann*

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