Bottles

Some of them crumple and some don't

The bottles had come in from home, and they went into a big basket.

They looked at the shapes and the sizes and the labels.

“This is the one somebody in our room brought in, isn't it?”

“What kind of bottle is this one?”

Some went over to the kitchen corner to be drunk out of. Some became the salt and the pepper.

One was lying on the floor and got trodden on by accident. It went with a bang and crumpled, and that was a fright.

“It's all right. It crumpled because you trod on it.”

Somebody else fetched a bottle and trod on that one too. Nothing happened.

“It won't work for him.”

An adult found a water bottle instead. “Try this one.” That one crumpled underfoot, and there was laughing.

After that somebody headed for the basin to fill a bottle up. Not today — but there'd be something to put in them tomorrow.

The empty one made no sound

An adult shook an empty bottle. “What can you hear?”

One child shook their head. Nothing.

So an adult put wood chips in and shook it again.

“There's a sound!”

Then there was everything else to put in. They filled the bottles and tipped them out and filled them again, listening to what changed when there was more in, and when there was less.

“I've finished.”

“Shall you put the lid on?”

It went round the wrong way. “It won't.”

With a hand to show which way, it went on.

Then music, and the bottles going along with it.

Rolling it, and walking after it

A small bottle with a stone in it. One child looked at it for a long time, then set it rolling and walked after it.

It went where it went, and they leaned the way it leaned to stay on their feet.

Others came over — one from the scissors, one from the kitchen corner — with a bottle in each hand, shaking them and rolling them.

“What can you hear? What sound is that?”

One of them listened, and smiled.

“It's music.”

“Here, catch. Shall I roll it?”

So it went back and forth between them, and then the others sat down with their legs apart and rolled the bottles across to each other.

Hidden among the pins

The bowling came out of the basket again. Pins up, ball thrown, pins down.

Then one of them pushed the ball in among the pins.

“It's gone.”

Somebody saw that, fetched a coloured water bottle, and hid that among the pins instead.

“It's gone. Where's it gone?”

Then found it and held it up. “Here it is.”

After that the water bottles went up as pins themselves, and the ball went at those.

There weren't enough water bottles to go round.

It only became a fountain out of the water

An adult had made holes in the bottles.

One child held one under the water in the paddling pool and watched the bubbles going in, and shook it about down there.

Then lifted it out — and the water came out of every hole at once.

That child stopped still and watched it, right to the end.

When it had run out, they did it again. And laughed this time, and did it again.

Somebody else held theirs against their own body like a shower. Somebody watered the pots and the vegetable bed with theirs. Somebody drew on cloth with the water coming out of it, and somebody filled a bowl and tipped it over themselves like a wash.

Washing the paint off

There was a big bunch of grapes drawn on a sheet of paper, and they filled it in with purple paint, fingers and palms.

Then a bottle with holes in it, filled with water and squeezed hard, and the water went over the grapes.

The paint came away wherever it landed.

So they aimed. And squeezed harder, and then softer.

It had frozen on the windowsill

The coloured water bottles had been left out on the windowsill, and by the time everyone came back they had turned to ice. An adult opened the window and brought them in.

“Is it ice?”

“It's cold.”

“Why did it freeze?”

Everybody wanted to touch one first.

“Me first.”

“I want a go.”

There was one each, so they sat down and took one each.

“Ooh, cold!”

“It's slippery.”

“My hand's freezing!”

They held them and put them down and picked them up again. Then one of them fetched a toy bowl and tipped a bottle over it, pouring.

“It's cold ice cream.”

It was warm in the room, and by the end there was water in the bottles again.

Let's shine it over there

Bottles, and a bag of soft pompoms.

“They're like clouds!”

“They're like candyfloss!”

The pompoms went in a small handful at a time.

Star stickers went on the outside. “It's the sky!”

“I'm putting a dinosaur on.”

“There are hearts as well.”

When their own photograph went on: “It's a dream fairy!”

Then the lights went off and the bottles came on.

“It's all sparkly!”

“Let's shine it over there.”

And off they went with them — to the toilets, down the corridor, into the hall — to find out what the light would land on. They sang, and shook them, and held them up next to each other's.

The milk carton turns into toilet roll

Two halves of a cut bottle, put back together, made a pot, and an onion went into it.

Car stickers went on the outside — cars being what they had been playing with all week.

They had been saving milk cartons as well. They rinsed them out and flattened them and carried them along to the council office, and came back with bin bags.

“The milk carton turns into toilet roll”

From the recycling shop

Out in the sandpit they ran out of things to dig with.

“There aren't enough cups.”

“We need loads more spoons.”

“We could go and get some from the recycling shop.”

“Yes!”

They came back with bottles, yoghurt pots, paper cups and plastic spoons.

“This one's good for filling.”

“This one's got a hole, so the sand comes out.”

“It's easier than the toys.”

“Yes — and using something that got thrown away means the earth doesn't get hurt.”

They made cakes with them, and ice creams.

“This is the ice cream shop.”

“This bit's the sand café.”

“Could we use these in the water as well?”

“Shall we make a castle with them?”

Hanging from the ceiling

It rained, so they stayed in and made rockets and spaceships out of bottles, to go with the space picture on the wall.

An adult hung them from the ceiling next to it.

“That one's mine. I made it.”

“That one's the long rocket”