Bubble Painting with Straws – Indoor Messy Art Fun, Perfect for a Rainy Day
Today we had a really thundery afternoon, with lots of heavy rain downpours – a perfect day for messy art. I had been planning on doing some bubble painting with straws for awhile now as I love to do this in school and I knew that Doodles and Oodles would absolutely love it! Little did I know that we would have the messiest fun we have had in a long time!
Originally my planned activity was along the lines of these great activities from Nurture Store and Meet The Dubiens . However, our afternoon of creativity took on a life of it’s own and this is what we got up to!
What we used:
- paint
- washing up liquid
- water
- straws
- disposable cups
- paper
What we did:
- Doodles and I mixed paint, water and washing up liquid together in cups. He made his own green paint. (I try to only give them primary colours so that they will be encouraged to mix and create their own colours. We didn’t measure anything jsut a little of everything and gradually added more water as the activity progressed.
- Initially, I gave each of them a straw and a cup and a sheet of paper and showed them how to blow bubbles in the cups, not that they needed any help as I am constanly asking them not to blow bubbles in their cups at dinner!!!!! Oodles is only 2.5 yrs so I wanted to be sure she was clear that she shouldn’t suck the paint up – just blow bubbles.
- Doodles’ demostrated to O how she should blow her bubbles and then he showed her how to place the sheet of paper on top of the cup to take a print of the bubbles (as outlined in the above links).
- He soon realised that if you kept blowing then the bubbles would spill out over the cup! His favourite colour is red and he was so excited to create a “volcano” as the red bubbles toppled over the cup onto the table.
- Once they both got the hang of this, I cleared the table and placed a fresh, large sheet of paper on it.
- I positioned the cups at various spots on the sheet and told D and O to get started. I encouraged them to move from cup to cup and see if they could cover the entire sheet.
- As you can see they certainly managed to!
- When they had covered the entire sheet, they then had super fun popping all of the bubbles and mixing all of the colours together using their hands.
- They spent ages swirling the colours around on the table and the effect was gorgeous – a rainbow.
- Doodles, grabbed his 2DS to take a photo as he was so proud of the effect they had created.
- He then grabbed another large sheet of paper and carefully placed it on top of the original to take a print!
- We even had tonnes of fun cleaning up afterwards!
This turned out to be way more fun than what I had originally planned, proving that art really is all about the process and kids just love an opportunity to explore, create and get messy!!!!!
Give it a try!
Have fun!
Ciara x
Linked to: HDYDI? @ What’s Up Fagans?, Mom’s Library @ iGameMom, Tuesday Tots @Rainy Day Mum
Our Little House in the Country 
You can t beat a bit of messy art on a rainy day!
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This looks like so much fun! We are going to have to give this a try!
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I used to love doing this in school 🙂
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So did I Sara! I loved it even more doing it with my students in recent years! But yesterday was by far the best fun! Really love your photos from your walk last night by the way! 😃
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This looks so messy…my daughters will love it!!!!
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Hope they have fun with it Paul, we had tonnes of fun, thanks for stopping by.
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Aww i used to love doing this as a kid! Fantastic fun! I would be terrified that Monkey would just suck up the liquid at the mo as he has never managed to blow bubbles through a straw and I am not sure he grasps the concept! When he does though i will be giving this a go! love it! xx #letkidsbekids
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I had to keep an eye on Oodles when we started. She’s 2 1/2 and well able to blow bubbles in her cup at dinner but she was so excited I was afraid she would forget what she was supposed to do! She managed it fine….after a mouthful of yellow bubbles!!!!!! So much fun!
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Perfect rainy day activity #LetKidsBeKids
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Such a fun time! Thanks for sharing!
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Wow, I really, really want to do this! My kids love blowing the bubbles in the cups, it would be great to add paint to it. I bet they had a fantastic time!
Thanks for linking #LetKidsbeKids
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Mine love to blow bubbles in milk! We need to try this!
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They’ll love it! I loved it! Super fun! 🙂
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I remember doing this at school and accidently sucking up some paint, I got sent to the headteacher for being silly, but it was an accident, I had been taking a big breath ready to make more bubbles. I still remember it now, it was the only time I saw the headteacher!! I haven’t tried this with my two yet but I would like to, maybe I will with my eldest soon. #letkidsbekids
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Oh no you poor thing!!!! Hopefully you’ll have a more pleasant memory of trying this with your own children at some stage 😃
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What great indoor activity! We’re always looking for indoor stuff to do in the summer when it’s too hot to be outside. That said, this would make a great outdoor activity too!
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So much messy fun! Thanks for sharing at the Love to Learn Linky!
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