9 Surprising Benefits of Bubble Toys and Bubble Play
Bubbles are adored by kids and adults alike. Something mesmerizing and magical about bubbles has made them a playtime favorite worldwide. Plus, bubble toys are an effective way to support many areas of learning and development in kids.
Nowadays, there are several kinds of bubble toys. Bubbles have much to offer, from different sizes to shapes, forms, and pops. So, let's talk about a few surprising benefits of bubble play.
Surprising Benefits of Bubble Toys
Who would have thought that simple bubble toys could have many exciting benefits for kids? They help develop some core skills and provide an enjoyable time filled with laughs and awes.
Visual Skills
Babies are not born with the visual skill we need to combat this world. Therefore, visual skills like focus, follow, fix, diverge, converge, etc., are all learned over time. Surprisingly, bubbles are an excellent way to improve a kid's essential visual skills.
Bubbles are eye-catching and slow-moving for the kids to observe their movement thoroughly. This helps kids learn how to use their eyes and work on developing the skills that can help them in the earliest months of life to much later at school.
Balance and Muscle Development
Playtime with bubbles is when kids are encouraged to use their muscle strength in various ways. For example, kids turn their heads and look in every direction. This simple movement can improve primitive reflexes and help kids coordinate their actions with moving objects.
Similarly, when kids play with bubble toys, they run around after the bubbles, try to reach bubbles floating above their heads, and use their motor skills to indulge in active play. This all adds up to strengthen their muscles and balance development.
Fine Motor Skills
Twisting the cap, taking the wand out of the container, holding the wand, blowing air to make bubbles, and keeping the wand back in are all part of fine motor skills. They are even grasping and manipulating the bubble toy to make the bubbles can help immensely in developing fine motor skills. And these skills come in handy when the children learn to hold a pencil, write, eat food alone, work with tools, etc.
Body Coordination
Tailing the bubble or jumping to pop the bubble, be it with one hand, both hands, a finger, or a foot, requires body coordination. This hand-eye and foot-eye coordination that kids practice during the bubble hunt is the basis of early movements that grow into advanced skills like catching, throwing, kicking, etc.
Mouth Muscles Development
Blowing is a fantastic exercise to strengthen muscles in the jaw and mouth region. And learning to blow bubbles is more challenging than it seems. Firstly, it requires learning to suck a fair amount of air, then holding it in, finding a focal point to blow, and finally blowing in the right direction.
Although it is tricky and may take a while to blow correctly, blowing can help build stronger mouth muscles. So, once the kids are old, encourage and help them blow bubbles on their own.
Opportunities For Language, Hearing, and Speech Development
Playing with bubble toys can provide several opportunities to develop language, hearing, and speech in kids. For example, the early speech sounds of trying to pronounce bubbles as "buh" and saying "puh" for pop are excellent for encouraging kids to understand language.
Children can learn more descriptive words to describe their experience with bubble toys with age. During playtime, they listen to others talk about bubbles and how it's making them feel. This can instill the skill to hear, decode, and learn various concepts in play. It engages young minds and helps them understand with a higher attentive rate.
Social and Communication Skills
As kids pick up words and become attuned to their feelings, they can also indulge in two-way conversations. Children are constantly observing and learning new things. And playing with a bubble toy also comes with the opportunity to play in groups.
When kids play in groups, the fun is infectious. They laugh together, enjoy themselves together, and develop familiarity with how social settings are supposed to work. In addition, they also discover body and space awareness as they learn to jump around to pop the bubbles without bumping into or hurting each other.
Body Awareness
Kids might need to improve at being aware of their bodies. This is also why they fall and get hurt now and then. And knowing where our body parts are and how they move, causing a reaction, is more challenging to understand.
Luckily, bubble toys have the perfect space to practice body awareness for kids. They allow the kids to explore, observe, and realize their body parts and how they move. For example, trying to touch the bubble with an arm helps them learn that they can stretch their arm up enough to pop the bubble.
Direction and Spatial Awareness
It is one thing to become aware of our bodies, but it is another to become aware of our surroundings. Bubbles can also help us understand how our body can move in a particular space and direction.
So, a kid trying to chase a bubble while jumping over a rock is the direction and spatial awareness. Because the kid could judge that there was a rock coming straight up, he needed to jump right ahead not to stumble and continue to follow the bubble. The use of words like up, down, under, over, left, right, etc., in bubble play are the basis of directional concepts that increase the direction and spatial awareness in kids from an early age.
Conclusion
Bubble toys are packed with surprising benefits for kids. But remember never to leave your children unsupervised as bubble toys may include material like the bubble mix that children can consume or get in their eyes. Plus, always use a non-toxic and child-friendly mixture to prevent harsh reactions.
