Bored? Blow a Bowl of Bubbles!

Erik was acting bored today, so I opened up my box of activity stuff and let him pick what he wanted to do. He pulled out the water colors, and though we've only done them about twice now (and not with huge success) he seemed pretty excited to give them a go. True to my expectations he lost interest after about a minute and a half, but I already had him in his high chair and a mess started, so I wasn't about to give up that easily. I decided to pull out a few straws and try blow painting. Don't know what that is? Here's a sample...

You drip a drop of really watery paint onto your paper and blow it around with your straw. It's really fun to see what shapes emerge. Erik liked the idea of it, but seemed unable to grasp the concept of blowing through the straw (funny, since he's done it before in his drinks occasionally). He just wouldn't seal his lips around the straw, so most of the air was just coming out of his mouth, not through the straw. Unfortunately, the paint needed a fair amount of air pressure to move around, so it just wasn't working out. Time for plan C. I thought for a minute about what we could do to practice blowing through a straw, and then a light bulb came  on in my head. 

 I put a drop of dish soap in a small bowl of water and we went to town. I first explained that we DO NOT drink through the straw, only blow. Then I showed Erik what happens when you blow into the water. He was pretty impressed (I don't think I've mentioned that he's somewhat obsessed with bubbles right now).

He jumped right in and started blowing too. I don't think he ever tried to drink the water, he just loved the bubbles. 

 It didn't take long before he was up to his elbows in bubbles...

 ...in fact, he ended up enjoying this whole thing the most when I'd let him put both his hands in the bowl and then I'd blow bubbles around them.

 With both hands busy buried in bubbles, he had to get creative with a way to pop them all. He decided his nose worked well for the job.

This kept Erik busy for nearly 10 minutes, which is almost a record for this kid. He had SO much fun!

*If you're wondering why I have this post labeled as one for "language development", I'll explain. Blowing through the straw helps build up those mouth muscles that a child needs to have to speak clearly. He has to be in control of every part of his mouth to get the blowing motion just right.