A Sticky Question
Posted by Diane Badden on 18 May 2010 | Posted in: Organization and Supplies
I’ve got a sticky question for you—very sticky indeed! It has to do with glue. 
Yesterday I was chatting with a colleague about the symbols we often include in directions for our younger learners. You know the ones: a pencil for “Write,” a crayon for “Color,” and so on. That’s when we realized the quandary of whether to show a glue stick or a glue bottle.
There seem to be clear pros and cons for each type of glue. The liquid stuff can be messy and definitely takes longer to dry, while the solid stuff is less messy and dries much more quickly. But when it comes to cost, it seems like liquid glue wins hands down.
So my sticky question for you is this: where do you weigh in on glue?
Sticking around for your replies!
Diane
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32 Responses to “A Sticky Question”
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More Comments Pages: « 1 [2] 3 » Show All Comments
Hello Diane,
I must say that glue sticks may appear to be the neater choice, but I’ll go with glue bottles! Using a glue bottle (rebus) is my preference!
As for the uses: I visit the dollar discount stores and buy small containters used for holding jewelery beads, etc. They usually come in a packet of 10. They are about 1.5 inches square and have a removable lid. Then I look for packs of paint brushes. Together, I can pour any amount of glue in the containers and let the students “brush” on the glue where needed. When we are finished, the snap-on lids can be used, or we just wash out both containers and brushes for the next glue project! It saves on the big bottles of glue being oozed out all over a project as well as allowing students an opportunity “paint” on glue only where needed! I’ll stick to this until a better idea comes along!!
Catherine *~*
um…..whatever they have available that was sent from home. Dont’ teachers seem to have and worry about the silliest of problems
I prefer to use glue bottles. It’s not that I don’t like glue sticks, but I hate having to worrying about them drying out or loosing the cap. I think that the students need to learn how to use bottled glue too. Plus it is so much easier to clean up and keep track of. I don’t allow my students to keep them in their desks, so they are held in a bucket on top of the groups desk. Also I label them with their names. In addition at the beginning of the year, I teach them,”Dot, dot, not a lot. Too much glue makes me blue.” It is a great way to make them remember to not use a lot. Plus we practice at the beginning of the year. But I love throughout the year, listening to them repeat the poem all the time when we are working with glue.
A baby dot does a lot. I teach my students this rhyme and that is how we glue all year! It ever fails by November whenever there is gluing the kids are repeating to each other the rhyme
In my K class I use bottle caps and q-tips. I put white glue in a bottle cap, one q-tip cut in two therefore 2 sticks per cap and two students share. I never have messes with glue. It is very economical and the kids quickly learn that not much glue is required for their marterpieces to hold up. It has been working for me for years! Voila!
We use small plastic fruit cup containers for the liquid glue. We then use small paint brushes to put the glue on the project. It is still messy at times (4-5 year olds), but the projects stay together better then with glue sticks which I use on paper projects like worksheets. Both the paintbrushes and fruit cups can be washed and reused.
In our class, we use “5 dots, not a lot!” with bottle glue - one dot for each corner, plus one dot in the middle. For stick glue, we started the year by using a ruler and drawing a box around the edges, then drawing an “x” inside the box. The students then traced over the lines with their glue. This makes sure that each student has enough glue to keep the paper down, but also that they glue exactly where we want them to, rather than covering the entire paper in stripes of glue. Now they know “a box and a x” for stick glue.
I’m going to take a different approach to this question. I believe a glue bottle would better represent the glue media than a glue stick. A glue stick could be easily misunderstood.
In agreement with all of the other responses, I also use both types with my preschool - school age children.
I use the 1.25 ounce bottles of glue that you can find in the grocery store with my kindergartners. The first few times we glue at the beginning of the year, I stress using a drop near each corner, and then we practice “in between”, or as many drops as needed, and where to place them. We also practice not “making a flood by having the glue squish out of the edges.” These small glue bottles are the perfect size for their little hands, and I just refill them from an empty paint bottle with a nozzle on the top. When glue sticks first came out, they did not work as well as they do now, so I have a definite preference for glue.
where can one find tap-n-glue tops??
I have glue sticks on the tables for the students to use on a day-to-day basis for cut and paste activities. I also have glue bottles for more involved crafts with different supplies. I find the glue sticks are great to keep on the table so you don’t have to distribute each time you do something that involves a little bit of gluing. But the white glue sticks better and I think it’s important for children to learn to use it properly (my grade 5 reading buddies didn’t know how to use it…probably because they always used glue sticks).
I have a collegue who always put her glue in baby food jars and the students used popsicle sticks to get it out. It did cut down on a bit of the globbiness caused by the bottles, but seems like an awful waste of popsicle sticks to me!
I agree that it depends on the project. A good way to help students use the right amount is to say “Dot Dot, not a lot.” It is a fun way to help students remember not to use a lot of liquid glue.