Bubbles - Pop, Pop, Pop

We blew hundreds thousands of bubbles this morning.

Blowing bubbles is a great way to practice hand-eye coordination, help improve oral motor skills to get our mouths ready for forming letter sounds and words, encourage deep breathing and relaxation, strengthen eye muscles, and is great inspiration for our writing.

We have been learning to write a recount (a story about something that has happened to us) and blowing bubbles together gives the children a common idea about what they can write about. When children first begin learning to write one of the important things they need to do is remember what they are writing about. In my class we call this 'keeping the story in our heads'. A shared experience can make this a lot easier (we still love free choice writing too - where we choose what to write about).

After we blew our bubbles we talked about how we felt, what happened to the bubbles, and how the bubbles looked and felt. This gave the children some ideas and words that they could use in their own writing.

Here are some of our recounts:

•  I was running and blowing my bubbles.
•  I was blowing bubbles. They popped on the grass.
•  I blew my bubbles to Brazil.
•  I blew my bubbles over the roof.
•  A bubble popped on my head. 

I use this recipe to make my own bubble mixture:

4 cups of water

1 cup of dishwashing detergent

60mL of glycerin

Pour it into a bottle and leave it for a few days before you use it.

I got my glycerin from a local chemist (it's also called Glycerol).

We have also been reading a book together about bubbles, called 'Bubbles' (one of my favourite shared reading books for beginning readers and illustrated by very talented and well known New Zealand artist and illustrator Fraser Williamson) and a poem about bubbles too.

We made bubble paintings with bubble mixture, dye, and straws. 

 Just fill a container with bubble mixture and enough dye to get a bright print on the paper.

Use a straw to blow bubbles in the mixture.

Press a piece of paper on the top of the bubbles.

I cut our bubble art into circles to staple on to the wall.

Our bubble art and stories look great displayed in the classroom.