It is the best thing ever. I learned about this last weekend from another art educator’s blog that I found on Pinterest: Mrs. Humpal’s Room
I’ve been teaching for 15 years now and had never seen this idea until last weekend. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I couldn’t wait to get to school Monday to try it. I had all the ingredients: sponges, liquid glue, and plastic containers with covers. I used Cool Whip containers that had been donated at some point (thank you!). When they saw the containers on my prep table, some of my younger kids actually got excited to think they would be having Cool Whip today. No such luck, but instead a wonderful new tool for the artroom! Here are the instructions, followed by a video of the “Glue Whip” in use:
I took large, thick sponges and cut them in half. Then I removed the corners, which I saved to use with clay.
At first I poured straight up Elmers glue in the tubs, but later diluted it about 1/3 water to 2/3 glue because it was just too thick. Then I just dropped in the pre-moistened sponge.
Just before putting the cover on, I flipped the sponge once to make sure it was saturated.
I have to say the kids were as impressed as I was. All you do is press the paper you are gluing onto the sponge and it coats it in glue. Easy, neat, and a great way to not waste glue! Before putting the covers on for the night, I sprayed each sponge with water. I imagine I may have to do it again when I open the tubs tomorrow.
Here is a video of one of the kids using the glue sponge to make his texture snowman.
Try it, you’ll like it! Really!
Oh my gosh. This literally just rocked my world SO INGENIOUS!
Jen – it is SO amazing, I actually left a glue project with a sub. I would never have done that with bottles of glue!
Greetings amgentili! Thanks for the thoughtful post! Do they rot over time? How does this compare to plain old glue sticks? Do you think this is a smart move for preschoolers…. Or not so much? Thank you! – mcs
Perfect! You could also put a drop of peppermint extract in the tub to keep it fresh smelling.
I would love to try this! I will! Tomorrow! I would just take the sponges out every so often, rinse them out real good, spritz both sides with some Fantastic, or Lemon Fresh 409, to kill any germs, then put on fresh glue. This works alot better than the little plastic lids I’ve been using with kindergarten…the ol’ index finger dip an’ dab method is going to be a thing of the past! Thank you!
[…] Once the books were finished, it was was time to think about covers. In planning this project, I knew this first round of books would be uniform, so I wanted the cover to be open to creativity and artist voice, yet with 250 books to manage, the materials choices would be somewhat limited. We went with collage using magazines (or whatever students brought to school), colored pencils, and construction paper crayons. The last step would be Mod Podge to add the gloss sheen and make the covers more durable. In future classes, metallic Sharpies will be available for final embellishment. On starting the collages, I was happy to open the glue sponges and see they are still holding up three years after they were made. This post describes how to make glue sponges. […]