DIY Dungeons and Dragons Dice Sensory Bottle

An easy to make Dungeons and Dragons dice sensory bottle for your future Dungeon Master.

It was pretty laid back spring break this year. We took on the HUGE project of painting Paige’s room, spent some quality time with the Nintendo Switch, and learned how to play Dungeons and Dragons. I use the term “learned” very loosely since even though we are playing, I’m not convinced we are doing it right. Eh, I don’t really care either, since we are all having fun.

One final thing we did was make some amazing sensory bottles. Oh my! They were so much fun!

I’ll be honest, until about 3 weeks ago I had never even heard of a sensory bottle. Then one day I was pinning some finds on pinterest that had to do with DIY galaxies. BOOM! There was a galaxy sensory bottle.

It looked cool, so I pinned it.

You know how it is with Pinterest. If you pin one thing, and Pinterest drags you down a rabbit hole of similar pins. That day I saw a ton of different sensory bottles that were called a ton of different things. I saw calming bottles, calm down bottle, discovery bottle, glitter bottles, and even zen bottles. Many of them extremely cool.

What is a sensory bottle?

I cannot be the only mother on the planet who was unaware of the existence of sensory bottles, so I’ll give you a brief description.

It’s a bottle…filled with stuff.

Too brief?

Sensory bottles are clear bottles or jars that are filled with various liquids and solids. From what I gathered from my Pinterest spree they are used mostly with toddlers as a way for them to explore things in their world without making a mess.

I have no toddlers, but I still think the idea is awesome. So did my kids. They came up with great ideas for some sensory bottles. Some of their ideas didn’t work, but that was ok. The supplies needed to make sensory bottles are inexpensive. So if their bottle was a fail, they started over.

Over the next few weeks I’ll share some of our sensory bottles with you, but today, I’m going to share our Dungeons and Dragons dice sensory bottle.

As novice Dungeons and Dragons players we’ve been fascinated by the dice. They are so cool! So many sides, so many numbers. Wonder Boy thought it would fun to put some dice in a sensory bottle. So, of course, we did.

As we were making it, I thought this actually WOULD make an excellent sensory bottle for toddlers. Dice are a choking hazard for such small tykes. BUT in a bottle, toddlers can be free to play and explore with them. Plus, it would be great for parents to explore numbers with their kid.

So, let’s make a Dungeons & Dragons dice sensory bottle

Supplies needed for D&D dice sensory bottle

Empty Voss water bottle (or any clear smooth plastic bottle)
Clear liquid hand soap (we got ours at Dollar Tree)
Clear liquid dish soap
10 – 15 various plastic dice
Black star glitter (optional)

Quick note on the bottle. We used a Voss plastic water bottle. Mostly because a LOT of blogs I saw with sensory bottles said these were the best. They aren’t the best, whatever is easiest for you is the best. I have to admit though, they are pretty attractive. You could easily use any kind of clear bottle or jar. If you are giving these to toddlers though, I’d stay away from glass of any kind, besides that use what you have.

We got our dice for cheap at the local tabletop gaming shop. They have this awesome aquarium that is filled with used dice. Of course, if you’re a D&D player, I’m sure you’ve got tons of used dice that are ready to go in your sensory bottle.

Instructions for D&D dice sensory bottle

This sensory bottle is so easy to make, I swear it will take you less than 5 minutes.

Here’s Wonder Boy carefully pouring in the soap for our dice sensory bottle

Before you begin you peel the labels off the bottle. Any residue can be cleaned off with Goo Gone.
First fill your bottle about halfway up with the clear liquid dish soap.
Next, you need to add your dice to the bottle.
After that, fill the bottle the rest of the way up with clear liquid hand soap. Leave about an inch of room at the top of the bottle.
If you are going to use the black star glitter, you can put a few sprinkles in now.
Put the lid on and shake the bottle vigorously so that the two kinds of soap mix together.

That’s it! Now, you may notice that you can barely see the dice through all the air bubbles you’ve created from shaking the bottle. They will eventually go away, just take the lid off the bottle and let it sit out for a few hours.

The dice fall pretty quickly on this bottle, so if you want to slow them down you can use more of the liquid hand soap. It’s thicker. We didn’t add more because Wonder Boy was happy with the way it flowed.

The other thing you may want to do if you are giving this to the tiniest of future Dungeons and Dragons players is glue the lid on with super glue.