Summer vacation starts this week for my kids and what better way to welcome the summer than with bubbles? Not only do we make our own bubbles, but we also create a bubble tower! Your kids will be surprised and delighted as they watch the bubble tower grow, and grow, and grow! This activity is so easy and fun your kids will play for a long time and want to do it again and again.
I first did this activity with my 3 year old toddler. She had so much fun she wanted to show it to her older brother and sister when they got home from school. They both ended up having more fun than she did with this activity. They had a competition to see who could make the tallest bubble tower, then we all had fun playing with all the bubbles that were created.
My kids wanted to try to hold the bubbles in their hands, then they tried to make them into a ball and toss them back and forth, and they tried to pop all the bubbles, it made for a fun screen-free afternoon for us.
Watch a video of the Activity:
We created fun videos for you to watch and follow along step-by-step to try this activity at home. Check out my YouTube video below:
Check out my Instagram reel below:
Bubble Tower Step-by-Step Instructions
Overview:
This is an awesome indoor activity for curious kids who will make bubble towers by reusing a disposable water bottle. Younger kids can play with the bubbles in the tower, and older kids can make it into a challenge to see who can make the tallest tower. This activity is recommended for children ages 3+.
Materials:
- Empty plastic disposable water bottle
- Scissors
- Paper towel
- Rubber bands
- Plate
- Water
- Dish Soap
Safety:
Sharp scissors are used in this activity. Cutting into the plastic water bottle can be difficult and dangerous for young kids, so an adult should use the sharp scissors to carefully cut the bottom off the water bottle. The cut edge of the water bottle may be sharp, especially if there is a jagged edge. Use caution when touching the rough edge to prevent cuts.
Do not share water bottles. Use a new water bottle for each person doing the activity (or wash thoroughly with soap in between uses) to prevent the spread of germs because you will be blowing into the water bottle.
Be careful to only exhale (blow) into the water bottle. Do not inhale. The soapy water mixture is not safe for ingestion. If it gets into your mouth rinse it out with fresh water.
There is a small risk that the soapy water and/or bubbles can splash in your eyes. If this happens flush your eyes with fresh water until the soap is out. To prevent this risk you may wear safety glasses while doing this activity.
Procedure:
- Adult: Use sharp scissors to cut the bottom off a disposable plastic water bottle. Cut just below the label.
- Cut the paper towel into a square about 1 inch larger than the water bottle (see photo below).
- Attach the paper towel to the bottom of the water bottle with 2 tight rubber bands. It needs to be tight and secure (but not so tight it crumples the plastic water bottle).
- Squirt a couple tablespoons of dish soap onto the plate.
- Cover the dish soap with a thin layer of water.
- Use your finger to mix the dish soap and water together.
- Place the bottom of the water bottle (covered with a paper towel) into the water/soap solution.
- Put your mouth over the top of the water bottle and blow. Bubbles with start to come out of the bottom of the water bottle below the paper towel.
- Slowly, pull the water bottle up as you continue to blow into it. This will create the bubble tower (be careful not to raise the water bottle too quickly or the tower will split).
- Keep blowing and lifting the water bottle as high as you can until you can’t reach higher or the tower separates. Once your tower is at max height gently tilt and pull on the water bottle to detach it from the bubble tower. Your bubble tower should stand on it’s own!
- Expand the STEAM learning:
- Measure the tower with a tape measure.
- Repeat steps 8-10, is your tower taller or shorter the second time?
- Blow harder and then softer into the water bottle, does it make a difference in bubble size?
- Try pulling the water bottle up quickly while blowing, what happens?
We didn’t think of measuring the bubble towers until we were done so we don’t know for sure who won. What do you think?
- Play with the bubbles:
- Can you hold the tower in your hands?
- Can you form the bubbles into other shapes (such as ball, cube, star, etc)?
- Do the bubbles float?
STEAM Concepts Learned:
When soap and water are mixed and air is added to the mixture, a thin surface will form to trap the air (creating the bubble). The soap lowers the surface tension of water allowing it to be flexible enough to form the bubble with the soap.
We blew air through the porous paper towel to form bubbles that stacked as we raised the paper towel because the paper towel had adsorbed the bubble solution. The bubble solution stored in the paper towel fibers allowed us to continue to make bubbles even though it was no longer touching the bubble solution.
You can practice geometry by discussing the shapes of bubbles. Bubbles are always sphere shaped because this shape allows them to take up as little space as possible while holding the most air possible. But when the bubbles start to stack and attach to each other like they did in our activity, they may squish each other into other shapes such as cubes or hexagons.
A math concept kids learn in early elementary school is greater than and less than. You can do a less than and greater than comparison with the size of the bubbles you’re creating. You can blow bigger or smaller bubbles depending on how hard, soft, strong, or weak you blow into the bottle.
Another way to practice math is to measure the height of your tower using a tape measure. It’s good measurement practice, and gives kids a goal to try to make a taller tower next time.
We had so much fun with this activity. My toddler is in a bubble phase, so I knew she would love this activity, but I was shocked that my big kids (age 10 and 8) had more fun with this activity than she did. I didn’t think about the possible competition aspect of who can make the tallest tower until they did it, but it made for a fun challenge for them.
We hope you try this activity and have as much fun as we did. Let us know how tall your bubble tower was in the comments!
