The Great Bubble Blow-Out

On Saturday, October 25, the Children’s Museum of St. Johns (CMSJ) debuted its newest hands-on, interactive activity for children at Ancient City Kids Day, a festival for children sponsored by EPIC Community Services. CMSJ joined numerous other family-focused organizations sponsoring booths at the festival featuring numerous activities and games for children, food, and performing arts.

“The Great Bubble Blow-Out” is literally a “festival of bubbles,” according to exhibit designer and CMSJ board member Charlene Cross, and will be featured at CMSJ’s “museum without walls”—a series of tents pitched on the grounds of the Francis Special Events Field in downtown St. Augustine.

Kids rotated to various “bubble stations” where they can made monster (huge) bubbles, body bubbles, bubble windows, and skeleton bubbles. They experimented with different utensils— including just their hands—to blow all kinds of bubbles, learn bubble “magic” tricks, and even make a bubble as big as they are.

“Bubbles are just good clean fun,” says Cross, who was an exhibit designer at the Baltimore Museum of Science prior to relocating to St. Augustine. “And adults love them as much as kids do.”

She also pointed out their educational value: “Bubbles—their structure and dynamics—are studied by scientists, mathematicians, and architects.” Case in point: the National Aquatics Center, built for the 2008 Summer Olympics held this summer in Beijing, China , with its translucent, blue-toned outside skin resembling a cube of bubbles.

Participants were encouraged to experiment with their bubble creations, ask questions, and examine the results: Can you blow a bubble inside a bubble? Look at the places where bubbles meet—can you make a bubble with straight sides? What do things look like through a bubble wall?

In addition to bubble stations, kids also tried their hand making bubble art. By blowing bubbles into a solution of paint and bubble solution, they created a nexus of colored bubbles, which they will transferred to paper. This art will be used to decorate the Children’s Museum float for the St. Augustine Christmas Parade on December 6. All activities offered at Ancient City Kids Day were free to the more than 1,200 participants in attendance, thanks to event sponsors.