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Check out your local toy store, party suppy store, or large discount
store (Target, Walmart, etc.) in the party supplies section. You
will usually find several themes that have bubble blower party
favors: SpongeBob, Blue's Clues, Thomas the Train, and others
are popular recently.
You can also go to a dollar store and see what they have. They frequently
have carded packages of several bubble wands and maybe even bubble
solutions that make great party packs for the kids.
 If
you can't find anything you like locally, check out orientaltrading.com
which sells a lot of bubble items in quantity for low prices.
Get regular bottles of bubble solution, and cover their labels with
ones you print or draw. They can say, "Jimmy's Bubbling Sixth
Birthday" or something like that. Use wide clear tape to
cover your labels so that the words don't run when they get covered
with bubble solution.
You could also try some of the "touchable" bubbles, usually
available in toy stores or the toy sections of big stores.
There are also candy bubble solutions -- personally, I don't find
them very tasty, but the kids often like them. They can blow the
candy bubbles and then try to catch them in their mouths.
You might want to check a rental store to see if they rent
out heavy-duty electric bubble blowers. These will blow bubbles
for hours (using a lot of bubble solution) and work particularly
well if you can have your party outside. Caution: the bubbles
can make the floor or even the grass slippery, so be sure to keep
an eye out for that.
If
it's too cold to have the party outside, have the blower outside
the front door so that as children come, they enter through a
shower of bubbles!
For decorations, try clear balloons hanging from the ceiling
or filled with helium to look like giant bubbles.
Bubble
wrap with the big bubbles is also great fun to use for decorations
and for the kids to pop -- they love it.
There are also some bubble-themed cake decorations (SpongeBob and Hello
Kitty are the ones that comes to mind).
You can have contests to see which child can blow the biggest
bubble, who can catch the most touchable bubbles on his hand,
who can blow a bubble that travels the farthest (have the wind
at their backs to take advantage of the extra push). The kids
could also work cooperatively to build a huge "bubble pile," stacking
as many touchable bubbles as possible on top of each other.
Use
bubble music ("I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," 'Tiny
Bubbles") to play a musical chairs game.
Let the kids experiment to see which common things make the
best bubble blowers. Set out straws, spools from thread, pipe
cleaners, wire circles made from hangers, colored telephone wire,
the plastic circles from six-packs, slotted spoons or spatulas,
cookie cutters, paper cups with the bottom cut out, strainers,
big beads, funnels, berry baskets, potato chip tubes and milk
cartons with the ends cut off, the metal circles you use to take
eggs out of Easter coloring, chains of paperclips, rubber bands,
and other things you find around the house. Also try using the
circle made by your index finger and thumb in an "O.K." sign as
a bubble blower.
In good weather, have the kids come with bathing suits. Follow a
bubble recipe (recipes here) that
includes glycerin and put a couple inches of the solution in a
child's small plastic wading pool. It's best to make the solution
a day or two ahead of time, but cover it so it doesn't evaporate
too much.
Put a hula hoop or something like that in the pool and have each
child take a turn standing very still in the middle of the pool.
Make sure your hands are covered with the solution (so you don't
pop the bubble yourself) and lift the hula hoop quickly and you
can put the child in a huge bubble. You will probably want to
practice this ahead of time.
Take
pictures of each child in a bubble and send them out with thank
you notes after the party.
Try Bubble Art. Mix 1 to 2 teaspoons of tempera or poster paints
(or 8-10 drops food coloring) into a cup of bubble solution. Use
a straw to gently blow into the bubble solution until bubbles
flow over the top. Lay a piece of white paper gently on top of
the bubbles and hold it steady until several bubbles pop, and
then lift off carefully. The paper absorbs the paint, leaving
bubbly art. You can also blow bubbles onto white constuction paper
to make bubble art. It may work best if two people team up, one
blowing the bubbles and the other catching them on the paper.
Let your pictures dry before moving them. You can see more details
on making bubble prints here.
Keep
up the bubble theme with the food you serve:
Real foods: Serve swiss cheese, spaghetti rings and meatballs,
melon balls, a cheese ball, carrot chips, hot dog slices, rice
balls, matzoh ball soup, Swedish meat balls, Brussel sprouts (but
not for kids -- that's mean), cream puffs, spinach balls (recipes
on the web), fish balls, pearl onions, cucumber slices, falafel
balls, oranges, grapes, chicken nuggets, bagels.
Snacks:
donut holes (with powdered sugar), blow pops, ice cream dots (if
you can find them) or make ice cream balls, popcorn balls, round
cheese puffs, tapoica pudding, jaw breakers (not for little kids),
round cookies, M&M's.
 Drinks:
fizzy water, hot chocolate with marshmallows, carbonated punch.
Or, best of all, give kids glasses of chocolate milk with straws
-- they'll make their own bubbles! |
