Thursday, November 1, 2012

Introducing.... THE GLUE SPONGE!

This has revolutionized collage in my classes - LOVE IT!! 


I wish I could take the credit for this idea - or even give credit to the genius who came up with it.  I originally read a description of a glue sponge container on a T.A.B Choice Message Board a few years ago, and it seemed like a great idea.

I cut a sponge to fit the container, and just poured glue in.  Students can just tap their shapes on the top of the sponge for a thin, even coat of glue - no more puddles!  I worried about the sponges getting icky, but I still have the ones that I made well over a year ago, and the sponges are still intact AND the glue isn't stinky :)
 The only maintenance these need are a few spritzes of water before they get closed up for the day, and flip the sponge every so often.  Last year I couldn't find the nice thick sponges, so I layered two thinner sponges, and it worked great. 

Love, love, love my glue sponge containers.

****Welcome Pinterest-ers :)  I wanted to add a quick note about shapes getting mangled/crumpled - as long as the sponge is well-saturated, kids shouldn't have to push them down hard on the sponge, so this shouldn't be a problem - when I see crumply shapes being glued down, it's a clue to me to re-teach students to gently tap the shapes onto the sponge (or that I need to flip or re-load my sponges).  Hope this is as big of a life-saver for you as it has been for me!
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35 comments:

  1. I love cut paper projects, but managing the glue is the bane of my life!! You may have just posted the best tip EVER! I can't wait to try this :)

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  2. Cool idea -- I'm going to give it a try. Thanks:))

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  3. Wonderful idea. I hate the mess that glue bottles make and if I had to say, "Just A Little Dot" one more time the rest of my hair would be gone. Thanks :)

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  4. Thank you for the fantastic idea!

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  5. Yes! Thanks so much for sharing this idea! WOW! I can't wait...we are going to hopefully be ready to start a lapbook project soon and this will really come in handy!

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  6. LOVE IT! I am going to try this out right away. I am your newest follower & would love for you to pop over to my blog and tell me what ya think! :)

    ~Nikki {http://smarttartslearning.blogspot.com/}

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  7. I teach second grade, and any time we have a cut and paste project I get one of those little piercing headaches right behind my eye...I can't WAIT to try this!! I went to the dollar store and bought a ten pack of small containers and a ten pack of really thick sponges for two bucks. This will be great!

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  8. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I only wish I had seen your idea on pinterest yesterday. Just today I made an early morning run to Wally World to get more glue sticks. My kinders seem to be consuming the glue sticks like candy. Thanks again for sharing!

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  9. I hope all of you that try this love it as much as I do! It takes quite a bit of glue to first load them up, but once they are saturated with glue, it lasts a looooonnnnggggg time :)

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  10. I'm an art camp teacher in the summer-6 to 12 year olds. What a great idea. Thanks for sharing. I bookmarked so I will remember.

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  12. Brilliant! I can't wait to try this!

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  14. Awesome idea. I will have glue sponges on Monday!

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  15. Do you think this would work with toddlers? They want to play with glue so bad but can't squeeze the bottle and the ones that can squeeze too hard and its everywhere,

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    1. Definitely, I've had 3yr olds use this

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  16. I have 2 year olds. I'm think I will try though. I might have to glue the container to the table first so it doesn't get dumped

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  17. how could they use these sponges at class?
    give example

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  18. this IS genius ~ can't tell you how much I spent replenishing glue sticks last year because i HATE dealing with white glue and it's lids ~ can't wait to try this (I'm your newest follower :)

    TheJugglingTeacher

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  19. AAAA-MAAAAAZ-ING! I was just cleaning tables on Friday in my PreK/PPCD classroom thinking "there's got to be an easier way"...and here it is. I will go to the dollar store in a few minutes. This will be so great in our art center too. Thanks for posting this. Ü

    http://theyarelikestarsonearth.blogspot.com/

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  21. I am definitely going to be making some of these for my classroom!!!

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  22. This looks like a wonderful idea. I'm a teacher aide in a class for special needs children, and I'm responsible for conducting our weekly art activities. We do a lot of paper piecing, and glue has always been a hard one for our particular students to deal with. This seems like the perfect solution. I can't wait to try it on our next project.

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  23. I just found this through pinterest... you just made my upcoming mosaic project 10 times easier!!! Thank you so much for posting!

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  24. hi!
    do you just use regular sponges?

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    1. yes, just regular, household cleaning sponges - I think mine were the ocello sponges from Dollar General

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  25. Hey. I just wanted to let you know that I featured this on my blog today. I would love it if you could check it out :)

    Mint Stuff I've Seen 28

    - Adele @ Mammy Made

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  26. I was wondering did you wet the sponges before put them in the containers?

    I am excited to try this since I too hate white glue bottles & the entire mess and frustrations that come with them.

    Thanks, Penny

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  27. I used fresh-from the package sponges, and don't think I wet them at all.... wouldn't hurt to rinse/squeeze them out before packing them into the containers, though :)

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  28. This is brilliant! I'm going to do collages with my daughter's kinder class tomorrow and this will save us LOADS of clean up! Thank you!!

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  29. I believe this is a great idea for collage artists too.

    http://cinnamonpink.typepad.com/

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  30. did you use just white school glue??

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    1. I used Elmer's glue-all, but regular school glue would work the same way :)

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  31. What a great idea. Will save money for sure. We are always in need of glue sticks. I can't wait to set up. Thank you!

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