A Little Glue

Looking for a developmental activity that involves sensory and tactile using alphabet/shapes/lines/numbers and is fun, too? Here is one!

Materials Needed:

1. glue
2. paper: construction paper, paper bags, index cards, paper plates or whatever you have
3. crayons
4. white paper

Choose to have letters drawn on a paper for the child to trace with the glue or the child can write their own letters depending on the development level. (The child who gets to hold the glue bottle and write their own letters may be so happy. Writing with glue – so fun!)

Here you see Mary, a 4-year-old,  has written her own name using the glue bottle. Other options are for a child to put the glue on using a q-tip or a popsicle stick.

Allow time to for the glue to dry. This takes several hours to dry. One idea is to get the glue on the paper towards the end of the day and then the glue can dry overnight. Sometimes you will need to fill in areas that are too flat with a little more glue during the drying time. The glue will dry clear.

Before Mary lays the white paper on the dry glue, have her feel the glue. It will feel raised up so she may call it “bumpy” and she may call it “slippery”. Tracing each letter with her finger gives another opportunity for her to make a connection with how each letter is formed. She can use one crayon as seen here or several to make a more colorful name.

This same activity works well with numbers. Again, tracing the number with a finger and visually looking at the number helps children to feel and connect how numbers are made. Make patterns with the glue numbers, too, for another teaching opportunity.

For younger children, pre-make lines like zigzags, straight lines and circles. You have your own glue fine motor tracing worksheet.

These work great with the playdough, too. Children can create an impression when pushing the playdough on the bumpy glue template.

Enjoy!
Cathie