Arts and crafts using glue

27/05/2016 by Cathy James 1 Comment

Glue is a wonderful sensory material for children to explore, and a springboard into all sorts of art, making and experiments. Take a look at our glue activities, and join in with the play.

Arts and crafts exploring glue

In today’s instalment of my stay-at-home, screen-free activities we’re exploring glue.

For very young children’s first explorations with glue, use a glue stick as it’s easy for them to hold.

Alternatively, you could cover the whole surface of a paper with the glue, giving them the sticky surface they need to create their art.

Offer some scraps of paper, in different colours and textures and see what they come up with.

If you’re already masters of glue sticks, try some runny glue as a contrast – giving your children a different variation to explore and link to what they already know about glue sticks.

Think more about the process of the art here, rather than having a definite end result in mind.

Let them scoop and pour and spread the glue, with no real focus on how it turns out.

The idea is find out about glue: what it looks like, how it moves, how it feels.

And then when they’re a little older the can start to explore how to use a glue gun.

Glue resist art

My girls decided they wanted to try some glue resist art for today’s activity.

They’re painting patterns and swirls using PVA/craft glue, and when they’re dry we’ll wash over with waterpaint, and see what happens.

More glue activities to try

For more ideas on how you could explore glue with your child, you might like to…

Combine glue with salt and paint.

Make a shapes collage.

Create glue snowflakes.

Turn glue into puffy paint.

Explore collage art with famous artist, John Piper.

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Filed Under: All Art, Painting, Simple Play :: complex learning Tagged: simple play