aquarium bottles

I think this might be my favorite activity of the whole year - and my students as well.  I came up with this idea the night before preschool at about 10:30.  But I was so excited about it I had to do it!  So I ran to the store and stayed up till midnight getting every thing ready.

I found these bottles at our grocery store in the juice isle.  They are a dollar each.  I have been waiting for them to go on sale (perfect for our pumpkin discovery bottles) but they haven't.  So I splurged and spent a dollar on each.  I wanted to put fish in that would "swim".  I tried several options but they either sunk (real plastic fish) - or just floated on the top and you couldn't see them (foam).  Then it came to me - water balloons!  I tried one and it worked perfect.  But it didn't look quite like a fish.  I added googly eyes with super glue.  Once I got the eyes on though I didn't realize that that tiny pocket of air in the eyes would make the fish float to the top.  But they just look like they are eating - so it was ok.

Here was my set up - I had to really facilitate the making of these - so I didn't get any pictures of the process - but we used a funnel to put some aquarium rock is.  Then each child got to put in three fish.  I made them small enough that they could go in the whole without copping - but they did have to be carefully pushed.  We did have 2 pop - but that was ok - just part of the process.  Then we sprinkled in some glitter for their food - then filled it up with blue water - and glued on the lid.

I made one the night before I drew fins on one to see if it looked good - it did not.

Here they are.  

One child's didn't pop - but it got a whole and started squiring out water - he still wanted it it because it was his "baby fish" - once we put the water in the pressure from the water kept the fish from actually "dying" - so it really ended up being a baby fish - it was so cute.