Bubbles

Wow! Daddy made a whopper!

Hmmm, should bubbles have been included in my "flight" post? Never mind, here's a little thought for the day on the subject, better late than never!

Bubbles are really beautiful. A delicate floating shape covered in a swirl of rainbow colours which fly where the breeze takes them and vanish in an instant. No wonder kids are excited by them. Being able to create such a marvel, watch it fly and then make it disappear again with a tap of your finger is like being a little magician.

What can you see in your bubble?

I find it nearly impossible to make good bubble mixture myself. The recipes on the internet suggest you need to add a bit of glycerine- soapy water just doesn't cut it, even with a bit of sugar added; plus, we've got very hard water which apparently doesn't help. I confess I generally buy the ready made stuff. We've had lots of different bubble wands, generally the bigger the better according to the children, tho a drinking straw dipped in bubble mixture will blow millions of tiny bubbles, which can be just as entertaining. You can easily make bubble wands out of a circle of wire- then they can be whatever size and shape you like, or you can look around the house and see if you have anything with a hole in that you can blow through, and experiment to see which ones will make a bubble. What about different shaped holes? Are bubbles always round? Can you blow a big bubble from a small hole,and vice versa?
Bubbles invite other questions too- which is the biggest/smallest bubble you can see? How many can you blow in one go? What can you see reflected on your bubble? What colours are on your bubble? Can you pop them all before they touch the ground? How high will they float before they pop? Can you catch one without it popping? What if you have wet hands?

Making a bubble trail.

"I made a bubble snake!

When it comes to blowing bubbles, little folk can find it tricky. Getting the strength of your fuff just right to blow up a bubble and detach it from the wand without it popping is quite an art, it's often easier to wave the wand from side to side, run along or spin round with it to get a stream of bubbles. Holding a pot of bubble mixture upright while you concentrate on making bubbles is also very difficult! It's worth wedging the mixture container somewhere so they come back to dip their wand and can't knock it over. Often kids are just as happy to let someone else do the blowing so they can concentrate on chasing and popping them.

Big, bare bubble blowing!

When they do learn to blow a big one themselves the sense of achievement is great!

Aaah, bubbles. The simple things in life...!


Just saw a link to this great vid showing how to make mega bubbles, will definitely be spending plenty of time doing this when the weather warms up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTb6Lpc0Gm4
And another great idea for bubble snakes:
http://www.housingaforest.com/rainbow-bubble-snakes/

Blowing a bubble snake.

Blowing bubble clouds through a sock.

If you want some ideas for bubble art, check out my post on paint.