How to Make Bubble Snakes

My kids LOVE making bubbles so they had lots of fun making these bubble snakes! It’s a really simple project and you end up with the coolest, long strings of bubbles. All you need is a mismatched sock and a water bottle – they are really easy to make! With all of this wonderful weather, it was great to do another outdoor activity.

I pulled out a pair of socks from my 5 year old’s drawer. I believe they’re child size 6 to 10? They fit perfectly over top of the water bottles. If you have any mismatched pairs of socks, those would be ideal, but go figure, I couldn’t find any today.  And I felt too guilty to raid the “stitch up the holes” pile of Elsa socks, rainbow socks and Easter bunny socks that have been sitting next to my sewing machine for months. (Some day, I swear, I will sew up those holes!)

Use a pair of scissors to cut off the bottom of a water bottle:

The water bottles we used were very flimsy and flexible (not like the plastic bottles that soda comes in), so they were really easy to cut.

Stretch out the sock and slide it over the open end of the water bottle.

Stretch it out so it opens up completely over the water bottle:

And then fold it back. Folding it back will keep it snug on the bottle, and it will make it easy to take apart if you are using a good pair of socks that you plan to reuse afterwards.

If the socks you are using are too big to fit tightly over the bottle, you can hold them in place with an elastic, or even some duct tape.

In a small container, mix together some dish soap with a small amount of water. I didn’t measure, but it was one big squeeze of the dish soap (thanks to my five year old) and about 1/2 cup of water. You’ll have to guess with the amounts until you get a good bubble consistency.

Dip the end of the bottle and sock into the bubble solution.

Then blow on the mouth piece of the bottle to make the bubbles.

The harder you blow, the better your bubbles will turn out. Blowing hard makes a snake. Blowing lightly kind of makes a big ball of bubbles on the end of the bottle.

My five year old was great at making the bubble snakes! My three year old on the other hand, hasn’t figured out how to coordinate the sucking and blowing yet, so she sucked a bit of bubble solution into her mouth. Yuck! So she was officially promoted to “bubble chaser”.

My kids LOVED chasing and squishing the bubbles that came off. They were light and fluffy, just like the bubbles in a bubble bath. And they were so light, that they almost seemed to stand still in the air as they floated down to the ground.

You can add a drop or two of food colouring to the end of the sock to get coloured bubbles if you want. I didn’t want to wreck these particular socks, so we are going to save coloured bubble snakes for another time.

Try experimenting with different sized bottles, adding food colouring, and different quantities of water and dish soap to see if you can get different shapes, sizes and colours.

These bubble snakes are an easy summer activity for kids! All you need is an empty water bottle and one mismatched sock, and you can make the coolest, long bubble chains! You don’t need fancy bubble solution – dish soap and water work perfectly! A few minutes of easy preparation makes for a very entertaining outdoor project!