We hope you have a lot of fun joining in and trying out the activities we’ve brought together to try and spread some good cheer in these times where bubbles have taken on a whole new significance!
We’d love to hear how you get on with our activities. Please do share any photos or memories with us online or by email. Most importantly of all, we hope you’ll find something in this fun palace which will put a smile on your face and enable you to play and laugh with those in your own bubble whist we stay safe and keep hopeful.
Lots of love from all at B’Opera, FOLIO Sutton Coldfield, Sutton Coldfield Library and The Up Creative Community
Thank you to Quarto Publishing for granting permission to use this book for storytime.
Please note both videos will only be available until the end of October.
500ml of water
2 tablespoons of glycerine (you can find this in pharmacies such as Boots, and some food shops)
120-130ml of washing up liquid
1) Carefully mix all your bubble mixture ingredients together.
2) [This is the hard bit!] Leave the bubble solution over night. This stage is really important if you want strong bubbles!
Whilst you’re waiting for your bubble mixture to settle, make a wand out of 2 sticks and about 120-150cm of string. Here’s a tutorial, but we’ve found you don’t need to use eyelets or screws, you can just tie the string to the sticks.
3) Dip the bubble wand enclosed into your mixture and hold the twigs apart. Move gently and you’ll create a giant bubble!
In a cup or a small bottle mix about 2 tablespoons of water with about the same amount of vinegar. Add in about 2 tablespoons of washing up liquid, and if you have any food colouring you can add a drop or two of that too. Now add a teaspoon or two of bicarbonate of soda and watch your potion bubble!
Can you come up with a good spell to go with your bubbling potion?
In Margaret Mahy’s Bubble Trouble (the story read in the video from Sutton Coldfield Library) there are lots of tongue twisters. Tongue twisters are often made up of lots of works that begin with similar (or even identical) sounds.
Here are some of our favourite tongue twisters:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?
She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.
The shells she sells are sea-shells, I’m sure.
For if she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
Then I’m sure she sells sea-shore shells.
If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?
Rolling red wagons.
Ed had edited it.
Can you create a tongue twister based on your name? Can you create a long sentence with as many words beginning with the same sound as at the start of your name?
For example: Maisie Mouse munches mostly Mangoes on Monday.
Giant James jogs jollily in jim-jams.
Cut two strips of card or thick paper, each about 15 cm long by 2.5cm wide. Cut a third piece about 10cm long by 2.5cm wide. Trim this so it has a rounded end. Use a piece of tape or tac to secure your two longer pieces of card in the pack into an X. The shorter piece will form Timmy’s head.
Use wool remnants to wrap around the legs in any pattern. Be sure to loop around all his legs and a circular motion helps to begin with to create a shell-like shape.
Have you had a clear out during lockdown? Have you any old clothes that don’t fit you? Recycle the fabric by cutting it up into lengths the size and width of a school rule and use these to weave a quilt, or quite the strips up and glue them like a mosaic.
The idea of bubbles has been fluid this year. We blow bubbles, we drink bubbles, we also stay safe and protect one another in our bubbles. For this activity you’ll need a paper plate and things to decorate it with. Draw pictures of who you share your bubble with, add a message or family name. If you create a hole in the rim of the plate you can use the wool left over from your Timmy Turtle to create a hanging bauble bubble of your bubble.
You can hang this in your home, gift it to a friend, or wait for information later in the Autumn about the location for UP’s Winter Wander, joining together bubbles to create living art in our town.
If you don’t want to keep your creations, please consider donating them for use by UP at future projects – they can be delivered to the Foodbank at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall or posted to The UP Creative Community, Steam Incubator Millennium Point, Cursing Street, Birmingham B4 7XG
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For our Fun Palace on the 3rd of October we put together free physical activity packs to go with all these activities and more. Half of them went to organisations working with families facing particular challenges at this time and the other half were bookable for contactless delivery. This has been the first time we’ve tried this approach to an activity – creating a pack and delivering it – so if you tried any of our Bubble Trouble Fun Palace activities or watched either of our videos, please do let us know how you got on – we’d love to see photos and hear about the fun you’ve been up to. Please tag us on social media however you prefer:
Twitter: @SuttonLibrary @FOLIOsutcol @Bopera #FunPalaces #UP2020
Instagram: @theupcreativecommunity @boperababyopera #FunPalaces
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/TheUPCreativecommunity/
https://www.facebook.com/FOLIOSuttonColdfield
https://www.facebook.com/SuttonColdfieldLibrary
https://www.facebook.com/BoperaBabyOpera
#FunPalaces