Bubbles are always a popular activity at my house and last weekend my two children and I made our own bubble wands. We spent about an hour putting together Arterro’s Bubble Wand Kit with my four year old daughter and six year old son.
The product was a very simple idea–they gave you a wire, 2 clear marbles, 2 colored wooden dowels, a pattern, and an instruction sheet. At first I thought “this is so basic, I could just buy the things myself.” But there is something about having everything in one place for the kids to see and play with. I have lots of art and crafts books with lots of activities I could do, but to have a “kit”–even with easy-to-find parts–might make the difference between a project I do and one I just read about and think “that could be fun to do someday.”
Needless to say, my kids loved the craft. The main idea was to bend the wire into any closed shape, attach it to one of the wooden dowels, attach the marble in a cool way to the dowel also, make the bubble solution and have fun using your unique wand to blow lots of bubbles. They gave a couple of patterns that you could use by nailing the paper to a piece of wood and then bending the wire around the nails. Both my kids decided to design their own patterns (using the patterns as a jumping off point). Finding a piece of wood, a hammer, and nails took a bit of time, but we rounded some up. The bubble solution was another small problem–they suggested a certain recipe that didn’t quite work so well for us (maybe our dishwashing soap wasn’t the right kind), but then I just used normal bubble solution I had lying around and (of course) that worked great.
My kids both love blowing bubbles in general, but designing their own wands made it extra fun. I liked the open ended aspect of the craft–my kids really got to explore what they wanted to do, not just follow a bunch of instructions and the finished product was something that I’d actually want to keep around. The kit itself was quite basic and would cost much less for you to assemble yourself, but giving it as a gift or having it as a special “rainy-day” project could make the cost worth it. The product itself and the company (Arterro) is very “green” friendly and uses minimal packaging and I especially appreciated the materials (glass, metal, wood) they chose to use. Overall, I definitely recommend the kits in general and the Bubble Wand Kit specifically!
—
WANT IT: Arterro’s Bubble Wand Kit ($17)
