Any art teacher out there will be able to relate to the excitement of receiving a box of supplies you’ve ordered! It’s like Christmas time!! I am so excited about this new idea I read about on the Getty Art teacher listserve. Clogged glue bottles were the bane of my existence. The little glue bottles with the orange tops constantly got clogged and stuck and you just could not get the glue out without a long and yucky soaking process. The soaking, degunking, refilling and constantly trying to find glue bottles that worked for the little kids was driving me to madness. Someone on the getty listserve posted this brilliant idea to put the glue in these flip top bottles. Minimal clogging! So they all just arrived yesterday and I spent about an hour (while the kids were working) filling them up and recycling all the gunked up glue from the old bottles (we had about 30 that I had been procrastinating on). HOPEFULLy this will work better! The glue comes out faster (obviously) so you have to show the kids how much to use.
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This reminds me that I used to tell each new class that one of the kids should grow up to be an inventor and create the “perfect” non-clog glue bottle and then provide me with a carton of them!!!
That's a great idea. I have some of those bottles that I can fill with glue. Very good, thanks.
Wow why didn't I ever think about that? I HATE refilling glue, I ususally just stock up at the beginning of the year when glue is $0.25 a bottle and just toss them. You should see the looks I get when I show up at the cash register with 100 boxes of crayons and 30 bottles of elmer's glue. (Isn't it funny how teachers think of the beginning of the year as Septemeber, not January? Or is it just me?)
I, too, cannot stand those blasted glue bottles! In my room we say the clogged glue bottles have “glue boogers!” I will be curious to see how the new bottles work out, I am envisioning glue all over the paper…good luck!
Love your blog ~ I have used the empty ketchup & mustard bottles for glue for several years now. You can buy them (cheap!) from any restaurant supply store or I've even seen them at WalMart. They work great w/ no clogging!
Thanks for the ketchup bottle tip, I will have to try them. The bottles I have work ok, much better than the clogging mess, but we do have some “oops!” moments with too much glue coming out. I don't use them with the kindergartners, but the older kids do ok.
Crayola makes school glue with a green top. It's a little more expensive than Elmers, but the top has this little poker thingy that keeps the glue from clogging. The glue comes out the same way as Elmers, but it has not clogged up at all. The tops are on tightly, but with a little work, you can unscrew them to refill the bottles. They have made my life much easier.
I switched over to “tap and glue” caps this year and they are WONDERFUL! clogging is non existent, and all they do is press the cap to the paper and a dot of glue comes out. I did have to teach the kids notto unscrew the lids like the old caps, but since then it has been smooth sailing and i have gone through MUCH LESS glue, haven't had to refill yet and it is February!
The best glue bottle is the one with the green top made by Crayola. The top has a thin plastic needle that fits into the mouth of the bottle. It keeps the glue from clogging and drying up. Only glitch is that it is difficult to refill since it's hard to get the second top off the bottle.