We’ve been on an impressive “clean house” streak lately, so today I was motivated to pull out our kid concoctions book. I have most of what we need for experiments in one bag.
 There is clear dish soap, shaving cream, sponges, drink mix, food coloring, balloons, starch, gelatin and corn starch. I keep all the paints in another container.

Today’s project was bubble painting. We mixed water, clear dish soap and three colors of tempera paint in three bowls.

Then, we placed a straw in each bowl for blowing bubbles. I figured the boys would love this since they get such a kick out of blowing milk bubbles.

The idea was to blow a mound of bubbles and then place a sheet of paper over top to get a painting in the shape of the bubble popping. I had some technical challenges, though, either from a bad mix ratio, too-big bowls, or something, because the bubbles did not stay well-mounded, and blowing into the paint easily sent spatters where I did not want them to go.

We tried laying the paper over the bowl and then blowing, which worked if we didn’t blow too hard. Otherwise, it looked more like a spatter painting.

 

Ian is trying his first attempt at bubble painting. Isaac did not want to try it, out of fear he would have a random spasm and accidentally drink the paint instead of blowing into it. I was afraid Elijah actually would drink it, but he got the message.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The excitement of bubble painting was short lived, so then we started experimenting with our left-over paint. We took turns standing on a chair and spooning paint onto some paper on the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also experimented with gravity a little bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we tried a “fold and dip” method.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We tried a number of painting methods, but the truth is, their reaction to it was, “That’s cool! Now can you build us a Hotwheels track?” Sometimes the effort and the mess pays off with a big hit, and other times, I essentially create little more than a monstrous mess for myself to clean up while they go dump a toy bin somewhere else. I’m going on faith that somewhere in all that, they are learning something worth knowing.