To get ready for a family road trip, I've put together Eye Spy bottles to keep the kids busy in the backseat. We seem to own one of the only cars left in America that doesn't have a built-in TV, so we do "old school" entertainment on the road. These bottles are a great way to recycle materials and entertain your kids for almost no cost—just collect the supplies around your house. Hopefully they'll bring many miles or years of entertainment.

Materials:

• rainbow rice (can substitute white rice or bird seed)
• small trinkets or knickknacks—here are some ideas:
  pom poms
  charms
  birthday candles
  paper clips
  buttons
  coins
  old keys

• color paper
• no-heat laminating cards
• super glue

Instructions

1. Gather trinkets in a variety of colors. Make sure that the trinkets can fit through the bottle opening.
2. Sort the trinkets by color and place them on matching colored paper. Photograph each of the color groupings. The photographs will become “spy cards” to go with each bottle.



3. Fill the bottles with treasures and rainbow rice. Leave some room inside for the rice and treasures to slide around—then kids can tilt the bottles and bring different items into view. If you have more than one child, you may want to make a few bottles and label them for each child. Super glue the lids so all the rice and trinkets stay in the bottle!
4. Laminate the spy cards to make them durable and kid-proof.



5. Time to play. Here are just some ideas:
• Find and count as many items of one color as possible.
• Challenge the kids to find one particular trinket.
• Make up a silly story using the objects the kids find in the bottle.