Noticing the Happy

There’s something about Under the Sea Week that makes me want to play in water all the time. We may not live by the ocean, but we can at least play with shells and beautiful blue water!

So this was originally an idea that I found on Pinterest, and as with a lot of those, it doesn’t always go exactly to plan… but was still a lot of fun.

The first recipe I tried (based on the post here) really didn’t make enough. Maybe it’s due to the hand mixer I have, but in the original recipe there wasn’t enough water to cover the top of my blender in the bowl I started with.  I did an awkward container transfer and then tried again, and it honestly just didn’t get as much foam as I wanted.

Here is my updated recipe, which is really just doubling it.  Next time, I might double it again and really go all out.  For playing this time, we were going to add it to our water in the sensory table anyway, so it didn’t need to fill as much space.

4 Tbsp of dish soap (we used Dawn Dish Soap)
1/2 cup bottled water
food coloring

We combined the ingredients in a bowl and mixed with a hand mixer until the bubbles seemed stiff, then transferred it into our sensory table.

As you might expect, once the bubbles got into the water, everything diluted a little.  It was still lots of fun and with the ocean toys and glass stones and shells we already had in there, the kids loved it.

Next time, I think I will use a smaller tub (so it takes less bubbles to fill it) and double the recipe again to make it faster.  I know I could try it in the big mixer too, but honestly I didn’t want to deal with cleaning it later.  All together, this was a fun, easy activity… and those are really the best kind.