People of all ages enjoy blowing bubbles and while commercial bubbles are a little more convenient, making your own can be a lot of fun!
To make your own bubble solution, you will need:
Dish soap (Joy, Ajax, Dawn, etc.)
Water
Corn syrup, sugar, and/or glycerin
Salt
Cooking oil
8oz Plastic cup
Craft sticks
Measuring spoons
Straw
String
Optional: Food coloring, pencil and paper or a recording device, commercial bubbles, pipe cleaners/chenille stems
What to do:
Create your own bubble solution!
Solution #1: A basic formula
Start by pouring a little dish soap and water into a plastic cup then slowly stir the liquid with a straw. When the solution is mixed, test it out by dipping the straw into the liquid and blowing through it to see if the solution can form bubbles, and how strong the bubbles are. If the bubble pops too quickly, decide if you need to add more soap or water to your solution. If you get one or two bubbles, or a stream of bubbles, and they last for a little while, you know you are on the right track.
Solution #2: Bubbles that are stronger or last longer
Adding a little corn syrup, sugar or glycerin to your bubble solution makes stronger or longer lasting bubbles. Find out if this is true by adding a little bit of one of the suggested items to your solution.
Solution #3: Bubbles with Unusual Ingredients
Some solutions are made with salt or cooking oil. Try to make a bubble solution that uses some salt (pdf) or cooking oil in the recipe.
Pre-measured bubble recipes can be found here
Pre-measured bubble recipes can be found here
Extra activities
– If you would like to keep track of how your solution is made, use measuring spoons when adding ingredients and then write, draw, take pictures, or record the procedure on a video or audio device.
– Compare your homemade solution to commercial bubbles.
– Find out what bubbles are and how they work.
– Do some experimenting with bubbles such as blowing a bubble within a bubble or make bubble structures using multiple wands.
– Get a stopwatch and find out how long your bubbles can stay formed before they pop.
– How high of a bubble mountain can you make? Pour bubbles into a shallow pan and blow air into it with a straw to find out.
– Make your own bubble wands out of: straw and string, pipe cleaners, wire, paper and other household items.
– Blow bubbles and see how many you can catch on your wand and blow them again to see how many you get the second or third time.
Something to inspire you….
After a brief explanation about how bubbles work, the following YouTube video features an amazing bubble performance by bubble artist, Deni Yang.
Something to inspire you….
After a brief explanation about how bubbles work, the following YouTube video features an amazing bubble performance by bubble artist, Deni Yang.
Sites to investigate….
A printable pdf written by Bernie Zubrowski filled with bubble experiments.
Learn what’s so fascinating about bubbles!
Explore some other bubble related sites.
Activity Village
This site offers a recipe and some other bubble activities.
BIG Bubbles
Site offers suggestions for making very large bubbles.
Bubble Geometry
Thinking Fountain offers suggestions for simple bubble geometry.
Bubble Poetry (This link will take you to the poem, ‘Blowing Bubbles’.)
Familyfriend Poems has poems based on bubbles written by its members. Put the word “Bubbles” in the search box on the top right hand corner of the page to pull up more bubble related poetry. Some poems may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Activity Village
This site offers a recipe and some other bubble activities.
BIG Bubbles
Site offers suggestions for making very large bubbles.
Bubble Geometry
Thinking Fountain offers suggestions for simple bubble geometry.
Bubble Poetry (This link will take you to the poem, ‘Blowing Bubbles’.)
Familyfriend Poems has poems based on bubbles written by its members. Put the word “Bubbles” in the search box on the top right hand corner of the page to pull up more bubble related poetry. Some poems may not be appropriate for all audiences.
FranW.com 
Comments
5 responses to “Make Your Own: Bubble Solution”
Very cool post!
Neato! We will have to do this during the summer. Bubbles are expensive! Thanks for linking up at the Geeky Educational Link Up again!
Thank you, Jess! I hope you and your family have fun.
Thank you for linking up at the Geeky Educational link up! These are fantastic. I see a bubble day in our near future. =)
Thank you for visiting, Meagan! Bubbles days are sooo much fun!