Blowing Bubbles

A bubble is made from a thin sheet of soapy water called a soap film. Inside the soap film, soap molecules line up on the inside and outside of the bubble with a layer of water between them. As the water in the bubble evaporates the bubble bursts.

For this activity we are going to be looking at some of the different things that you may have at home that you can use to make some extra large bubbles. You may want to try and do outside if you can!

The first thing that we are going to do is make our bubble mixture, so we are going to add some washing up liquid to our bowl of water.

There are lots of different things that you have at home that you can use to make bubbles. If you have pipe cleaners at home you can bend these into different shapes to make bubble wands. 

You may have a paper cup. If you cut the end of the cup off you can use this to make bubbles

You can thread string through a straw and this will make a flexible bubble wand. You can experiment with different lengths of string and see how big you can make your bubbles

You can also try and make some 3D structures by taping some straws together and using these to make bubbles.

To make longer lasting bubbles, try adding glycerol. Glycerol holds onto the water in the soap film for longer so can help make longer lasting bubbles!

The video tutorial for this activity is available on the Surrey Libraries Facebook Page or the Surrey Libraries YouTube Channel