At a gift stop on St. Simons Island, we came across an excellent bubble wand. It opened a whole world of joy!
I used to do bubble programs with kids during my college days. I had large wands, but the handles were wood so kids needed a deep bucket of bubble solution before they could easily coat the wand themselves. In that St. Simons gift shop, however, I discovered somebody thought to put a flexible tube handle on a bubble wand. Hooray!
Here's Eli's buddy, Simon, demonstrating why this wand is so great..
Back in college, I used the Klutz Press book How to Make Monstrous, Huge, Unbelievably Big Bubbles. The book kit includes a tool called "The Bubble Thing" that does exactly what the title promises. I think, though, that at age four, Eli isn't quite ready for The Bubble Thing. With a rope loop and ring that moves along a stick, it takes longer arms and more coordination to make the trailing bubbles that are its specialty. I'm saving that fun for happy spring days in years to come.
From the Klutz book, however, I knew that there are three components to huge bubbles -- bubble wand/maker, atmospheric conditions, and bubble solution. Calm, humid air is important. And we needed the right bubble recipe. After some experimenting, I decided the best one is on the website of Steve Spangler, an author who writes great books about science for kids. Here is the link to the recipe (as well as some bubble-making tips):
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/bouncing-bubbles
The gift shop where we bought our wand used an oversized plastic planter saucer as a bubble solution container. That worked well, but I didn't want to have to drain and clean a container each time. We use a Rubbermaid TakeAlongs large rectangular container (one gallon or 3.7 liter capacity) so we can just snap the lid on for storage.
On St. Patrick's Day, we took our bubble supplies (including some dime-store bubble pipes and wands) when we went to visit friends. Eli, Lucas, and Simon had a grand time making, chasing, and popping bubbles while Baby Arthur sat in the grass staring in wonder...
I'd forgotten how much giggling and happy exercise this entails. I predict many bubble adventures for us this spring. And our next step? While roaming the web, I found lots of sites for making your own bubble wands!
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