I´ve been thinking about and planning gluing posts for my blog, but I thought it would be helpful to start with one called, teaching children how to glue. We can´t assume that children know these things and therefore to begin with we need to explain, demonstrate and then practice using the glue bottle. Since Christmas is coming up, I though why not glue some pom poms onto a Christmas tree. What a wonderful idea! Learning to glue and you end up with a beautiful picture to hand up on your wall.
Before you start you can discuss with you child what glue is? What is it used for?
They might even want to feel it between their fingers (have wet wipes ready). This is also a good time explain that it´s not for eating! Or sticking or putting anywhere other than the paper!
- Demonstrate to your child how to open the glue bottle by twisting the top. Let them practice.
- Then aim the bottle down at the paper and demonstrate to them how to squeeze the bottle lightly so a little dot comes out. Most teachers believe that you should show them how to not to do it first. Demonstrate that too much glue will be messy, and unworkable. But whichever way you feel like demonstrating, the aim here is to teach them that less is more. One dot is a lot.
- When the activity is finished you demonstrate that the bottle needs to be closed (otherwise the glue will dry and no glue will come out the next time we use the bottle) and stored standing up.
Teaching children how to glue
Ingredients
- Construction paper
- Scissors
- Pom poms
- Glue bottle
- Marker
Instructions
Cut a Christmas tree out of the construction paper (and remember no one will judge you if you use a large cookie cutter as a template or if you have a ready made one).
Draw dots on the Christmas tree with the marker.
The next step is to put a small amount of glue on each of the dots. Remember that children will need a visual demonstration on how big or small the dot should be and while they are learning their dot might be a lot bigger that yours. Therefore, you could cut out more than one Christmas tree so they get a lot of practice.
When all the dots have been filled, your child can put a pom pom on each dot.
When the activity is done, you remind your child to close the bottle and set your Christmas three aside so it can dry.
