Bubbles

I've just realised I never finished this post! We had a lot going on around Christmas time so it just got forgotten about.  So here it is, finally finished....

When James and Charlie were babies I used to take bubbles to entertain them with at the park whilst their older sister played and a lovely memory I have of this time is of an elderly lady approaching us one day.  I was thinking 'oh god, here we go again, its going to be 'Are they twins?'/'You've got your hands full' time, but instead she really joyfully wanted to see our bubbles and tell us how much she loved to watch them floating about! She did coo over the babies too and I often think of her when we play with bubbles. 

So bubbles have been an ongoing theme for years.  Even when the boys were at their most distant, bubbles would still get a small reaction and were one of the few ways we could engage them in 'play'.  We use them for communication games, by blowing some bubbles and then waiting for a cue that they want more.  At first this would be just the tiniest bit of eye contact, gesture or murmur.  Latterly this has developed into signing 'please' and now signing 'more please'. 

Recently we had a whole week of 'bubbles' at the end of our 'water' project, so here are a few pictures of the different ways we experienced them.

I think the bubble wands are great for our lads. They are not able to blow bubbles yet, but can make bubbles themselves by waving or spinning around with the wand.  They were fab on the beach because it was windy and the bubbles did themselves!

The tasting of 'bubbly water' was not a popular activity!

The following were taken at '@-Bristol' who we found to have a great attitude towards home educating families, people with disabilities and carers, very refreshing!!

Here are a few random pictures of the bubble machine....

they build up really nicely when we set the machine off over the table, only to be whooshed away!

Here's an older one of our stand in bubbly 'thingy'....

This is (I think) a Natural History Museum toy, I can't see it on their website now but then this picture was taken 2 years ago.  It is a really good activity and works very well. 

We also have tried Touchable Bubbles which I find a bit strange. They hang around for ages though so are great to keep going back to for observations - they wrinkle up.  They also leave marks on everything!