Bubble Ball

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Hey there! I’m Breanna from Dollar Store Mom. You know those moments when you’ve really gotta pinch yourself to be sure that this is really real? I’m totally having one of those today! I’ve been obsessively reading I Can Teach My Child for over a year now, and have found it to be a constant source of help and inspiration for helping my curious little lady learn! I’m pretty much over the moon about getting to share this simple and fun project with you today.

Next to cardboard boxes, bubbles are the ultimate kid-pleaser! Now that spring is FINALLY beginning to show it’s sunny face here in Portland, we’re spending as much time as possible outside. We were

playing outside a few days ago and invented a game my little lady named “Bubble Ball.” Not only is it super fun, it provided a great opportunity to talk about how bubbles work.

What you’ll need:

* fly swatter

* bubble solution

If you don’t have any bubble solution on hand at the moment, here’s my tried and too-good-to-be-true recipe:

½ cup Dawn or Joy dish washing

4 tablespoons glycerin (found at pharmacies)

4 ½ cups of water

Spoon

Container for bubble mixture

I’ve found this recipe creates really gorgeous, lasting bubbles.

The game is uber simple: I would blow bubbles, and the little lady would use the fly swatter as a bat to hit each bubble. As she did this, something INCWEDIBLE happened (well, that’s how she put it

anyhow)! As the fly swatter hit one big bubble, it burst into dozens of tiny bubbles. She was fascinated by this “magic” and started asking questions about how it worked. We talked about how bubbles are formed by pushing air through the bubble wand with slippery soap mixture that wraps around the air, trapping it inside. I showed her how the fly swatter had lots of little holes in it, and explained that when she swatted the big bubbles, it pushed the slippery soap and air through the tiny holes, making new itty bitty bubbles. If you watch closely in the video below, you’ll see the MAGIC happen!

My particular little lady never runs out of questions or the desire to experiment, so we went around the house finding and making things that we could blow bubbles through to see what kind of bubble would result. We used string, pipe cleaners, hoop earrings, a left over egg dye dipper, paper clips, cookie cutters…not everything worked, but that was part of the fun! We then experimented with colored bubbles by adding food coloring to the bubble mixture. WARNING: this could stain! I had her blow the colored bubbles into paper, and watch them burst and leave fun colored splashes on the paper.

There really are a zillion things to do with bubbles, and now’s the perfect time! We’ve played Bubble Ball everyday since we invented it, and it never gets old! I hope you’ll take some time to get bubbly with

your little ones, and explore all the soapy fun for yourselves.

For lots of fun and frugal activities and crafts for your kids, come

visit me at Dollar Store Mom.