I remember spending hours and hours blowing bubbles as a kid - playing in the soapy water, trying to make the biggest bubble possible and then attempting to catch it again without popping it. Lucky for me, Ethan loves bubbles, too! We make our own bubble solutions when the store-bought ones run out.

You can play around with the proportions, but my favorite bubble solution recipe is this one:

Super Bubble Solution

Ingredients:
2/3 cup dishwashing detergent
1 gallon water
2-3 tablespoons glycerin

Directions:
Gently mix the ingredients together in a gallon jug, and let it sit overnight with the cap off. (If the kids can't wait, no big deal. You can use it right away.) Pour it into smaller bubble solution containers for easier portability.

Tips:
1. If you have the time, make your bubble solution and store it for a while before using it. The older it is, the better!
2. Dawn and Joy seem to be the best dishwashing detergents for making bubble solutions.
3. If you have hard or well water, you might consider using bottled distilled water for your solution.
4. You can find glycerin at drugstores or often at craft stores. Our grocery store carries it in the first aid / medicine section.
5. Glycerin is expensive, but you can get similar results by using light (as opposed to dark) Karo Syrup.

When it's bubble time, we bring out some shallow plastic bowls or metal cake pans and pour some solution in them. I pull out lots of things to use as bubble wands:

- drinking straws
- fly swatters
- metal coat hangers
- plastic cookie cutters
- six-pack holders (those plastic rings that hold all the soda cans together)
- funnels
- strawberry baskets
- cotton shoelaces tied into a circle
- our hands!

Bubbles are great for experimenting in all sorts of ways: What happens if you touch a bubble with a dry finger? How about a wet finger? Can you blow a bubble inside a bubble? Can you catch a bubble on top of another bubble? Try blowing bubbles on a rainy day when the yard and sidewalks are wet. Your bubbles will decorate the ground!