Toddler Art Class: Bubble Art!

Making art with bubbles -- the best of two worlds!

Art Project: Bubble Art
Supplies:
small bottles of bubbles (party-favor size)
food coloring
sturdy cardstock or lightweight cardboard

Book:
  Bubble trouble / Mahy, Margaret  

Set-up: 
add about 3-4 drops of food coloring to each bottle of bubbles.  I coordinated the color of the bottle to the color of the dye.  I also left the purple bottles uncolored (purple=plain) to give an opportunity to "practice" with less mess if parents wanted to.
 

What Kids Do: 
blow bubbles!

 some tried "painting" with the bubble wand

 and I saw a lot of blue lips!  (not sure why not the other colors...)

Hindsight Tips: 
--Most parents held the bubble wand and the bottle of bubbles and let their child focus simply on the blowing.  This seemed to work well.
--Some parents held the paper up in front of their child's face as they blew bubbles and that yielded good results too (otherwise, the bubbles tended to float all over the place).
--at least one or two bottles of bubbles got dumped per class session.  This is another reason that the party-favor sized bottles are preferred!  Have lots of towels or paper towels on hand to soak up these messes.  Food coloring stains!
--Parents loved the results of this project!

Variations to try: 

--This would also be a great outdoors art project.

Adult Challenge:  Don't tell your child their artwork is "pretty" or "nice."  Instead, come up with other language to discuss their art with them OR focus on talking about the experience of making the art instead of the final product ("Did you have fun making that art?"  "What was your favorite color?" etc.).