Yesterday I posted some adorable bubble snake creatures that my twins (age three) have been enjoying. Several people mentioned that their younger kiddos tended to suck in on the bubble snakes, resulting in a mouthful (or lungful) of bubble solution. As I mentioned in that post, bubble snakes are definitely not appropriate for kids that don’t have the concept of “blow out, not in,” but I wanted to find an alternative for littles who might want to join in the fun. I remember making these bubble pipes when I was a kid, and with a tiny and ridiculously simple alteration, you can make them un-suckable (is that a word?) and safer for younger kids to use.
No-Suck Bubble Pipe
These pipes literally take five minutes to make with common household items. The result is a nifty little contraption that creates cascades of glistening bubbles, much to the delight of any child around. You can add color to the bubbles with food coloring if you desire, but it’s pretty messy and does result in temporarily stained skin and more permanently stained clothing. We had the most fun with just plain ole’ bubbles.
And no matter how hard you try, you can’t suck the bubble solution back through the straw and into your mouth. But you can still blow all the bubbles your little heart desires!
Make Your Own No-Suck Bubble Pipe
You will need:
- Paper cup
- Straw
- Masking tape or duct tape
- Bubble solution
- Scissors
To begin, poke a hole for your straw in the side of your cup just a few centimeters up from the bottom. Push your straw into the cup through the hole (see photo below).
Use your tape to secure your straw to the cup and seal the hole so no bubble solution can escape. To make your pipe un-suckable, take your scissors and cut a notch in your straw close to the top. We tried several different places/sizes of holes in our straw, and you can see below (indicated by the arrow) which one worked the best. With the hole in the straw you should still be able to blow bubbles but it will be impossible to suck solution up to your mouth.
Here is what your final product will look like to help you visualize.
To test out your pipe, fill the cup with bubble solution until your straw is covered.
Then, take a deep breath and blow some beautiful bubbles!
Obviously you would still need to supervise young children when using these, just to make sure no one tries to drink the solution from the cup. But I feel silly even telling you guys that- I have faith that you know what activities are appropriate for your child! My three-year-olds got a big kick out of these and never even tried to suck through the straw, but it’s nice to know that if they did, nothing would happen.
Developmental Skills
Bubbles have always been one of my go-to activities for speech therapy. You can work on joint attention, early developing speech sounds, breath support, and so much more using bubble activities. Here is an article from Constantly Speaking about bubble and blowing (airflow) activities for speech therapy. Constructing the bubble pipe is great for fine motor and cognition as problem-solving skills are utilized to put it together and to figure out where the best place for the no-suck notch to go in the straw.
More Boredom Busters from Twodaloo!
Looking for more ways to beat the heat? Try a few of these fun activities!
- Bubble Snake Creatures
- Colorful Gelatin Castles (Sensory Art Play)
- Giant Reusable Bubbles
- DIY Galaxy Slime
- Giant DIY Block Puzzle
- Resist Art Stepping Stones
Great info
I used this tutorial to make these for my daughter’s Ariel birthday party!
We called it the DIY Snarfblat section! The kids really enjoyed it, thank you for the tutorial!
I love all your bubble activities! Bubbles is always an awesome go to activity with children. I def. want to try these activities. I think it’s awesome bubbles can help with speech!
Thanks for sharing!