Glue Sponges save the day! Here is a "How to use a glue sponge" tutorial slideshow for classroom use.

I have a long twisted history with glue in my classroom.  I started to get the idea about implementing glue sponges when I saw an awesome poster about their use in my Tumblr feed.  After my last glue saga post, I had another teacher suggest glue sponges and told me to check Pinterest.

I was intrigued and decided it was time to make some glue sponges.

I am going to interject here with my own pity story about what a pain in the neck it was just to get them made.  I put in a money request from school to purchase the sponges and tubs from Target.  I thought that would be easy since I go there enough.  However, I ended up never having time to go to Target and peruse bins and sponges.  I had money to spend, and no time to spend it.  I usually have 3 kids in tow and I usually have other shopping to do, and - aint nobody got time for that...!  I wanted to just order them online, but Target does not sell sponges and Gladware online, and neither does Blick.  Finally, I had the opportunity to go solo to Target and buy my supplies.  I could not find regular 'ol cello sponges in all of Target Greatland.  I ended up buying the ones with scrubbers on one side.  Even those were hard to find and I cleared out an entire endcap.  Next, I had to find the Gladware.  I was stuck in this Corningware/green lunch box aisle and could not find regular Gladware anywhere.  I finally gave up and was just going to purchase the more heavy duty lunch box things.  Then, I stumbled upon the Gladware several aisles later with the trash bags and such.  I had to figure out all over again what size to get, and how many.  I wanted 12 for each school I teach out - for a total of 24.  Gladware is sold in packs of 5 and the sponges were packages of 6 or 2.  It's a good math problem and I screwed it up. I'm still short sponges, and that should of been the easy part. I had all my supplies finally, and I spent one morning putting glue sponges together.

I was anxious to use the glue sponges with the kids, but the Pinterest page told me to wait and let them soak overnight.  The next day I inspected my glue sponges.  I was excited, but kept thinking about how the kids are not going to know how to use these, and they wont be able to see me demonstrate how to use it properly.  Plus, they might forget key details! They might make a huge mess!!

 I spent my afternoon putting together this PowerPoint, "How to use a Glue Sponge."

I played it for the class and had it going on repeat throughout the hour.  I have had great success with it so far and the glue sponges have been fantastic!