Last year we stayed in Nuremberg, a city in Bavaria. For my kids, the Nuremberg zoo and the train museum were fun, but not as much fun as tearing through the cobbled streets of Old Town. Our hotel was right in the middle of the market square bursting with fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers, outside cafes, little knick-knack shops, and under the imposing shade of the great churches St. Laurenz and St. Sebaldus.

 

Every day we would stand in front of St. Sebaldus church looking at a street performer making giant bubbles.  For a small fee, he would let children take his wand and try their hand at making giant bubbles. When I was helping my kids I realized (to my utter surprise) that his wand was just a yarn threaded through two drinking straws for handles. So as soon as we got back to Chicago we made a bucket of homemade bubbles (it’s just dishwashing liquid with water), a couple of wands and got to work. 

If you want to be the coolest family in your neighborhood bring it to your local park. Every kid in the vicinity of a mile will be right next to you whooping with joy. Even a year later, we meet those neighborhood kids on the street and they say, “your giant bubbles were so COOL! Are you going to do them again?”

Do you use glycerine on your skin? I do, especially in the winter. It makes my hands so smooth. This is the bubble solution I use most often. I don’t use Dawn for washing dishes since I prefer more natural brands like Seventh Generation and Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, but for bubbles Dawn is the best. 

 

 

 

 

Corn syrup makes bubbles that are very colorful but makes everything sticky. Definitely don’t try it near your home as the bees, wasps, and ants will be visiting for days! 

 

This is the most labor intensive recipe. The bubbles will be slightly larger than with the other two. Try it, if you like experimenting.

 

 

 

This is the wand that makes those unbelievably huge bubbles. You can use the whole straw or cut it in half. The size of straws doesn’t really matter. Straws are handles, so whatever feels better in your hands will work better for you. I would definitely recommend a smaller size for kids as their wrists get tired faster with a bigger size.

 

 

This wand will make big bubbles, but not the giant ones. However, this wand will probably be your kids’ favorite. If I give my kids a bucket of bubbles and this wand, they will keep going with it for an hour. Another advantage of this wand is that it has a long handle so hands don’t have to come in contact with the solution like with the wand #1 above. When we take bubble solution on picnics this is the only wand I grab with us.

 

 

With all three solutions, practice makes perfect. The first few bubbles may pop frustratingly fast or don’t come out at all. But you will quickly develop a kind of feel down in your wrists that will tell you how much liquid you need on your string and how fast you need to move to make the bubbles come out and when to flick the string to set the bubbles flying. Even my youngest two who are 4 and 2 year old learned how to make the bubbles with the string, so dont’ get discouraged.

 

 

Submerge the wand into solution. Pull it out. Bounce it up and down, side to side, or walk backward pulling the contraption in front of you. If all fails just blow bubbles like my 2-year old. They still will be bigger than the regular ones.