I haven’t met kid yet who doesn’t like bubbles. Even if they don’t want to TOUCH it themselves they will usually get a kick out of chasing and popping them.  What I like about bubbles is that it is so easy to weave in science lessons that kids from toddlers on up can appreciate.

At the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation Preschool I used bubbles to help the kids grasp the idea of a scientific method.   I broke down the concept into four easy steps:

* Ask a question

* Make a guess

*Test it out

* See what happens!

Then, the scientists helped me solve the big question… are bubbles always round? We created our own crazy shaped bubble blowers out of pipe cleaners (and I brought a bunch of cookie cutters in funny shapes) and then tested out our guess. I won’t ruin the surprise and tell you what we discovered !

Even the toddlers got in on the fun.  For them, we sang songs and used felt bubbles to explore the shape of bubbles and talk about circles.  Then we blew lots of bubbles and had fun popping them!

Since I had three classes to bring bubble soap for, I tried to make my own.  I’m not totally thrilled with how it turned out (it wouldn’t make giant bubbles like it promised) but it certainly was easy to make and did a nice job for regular bubbles.  I’ll keep tweaking it and get back to you on any improvements.