When I decided to switch to Kindergarten last Spring I took any and all advice from my co-workers who had taught Kindergarten before. One of those pieces of advice was to use glue bottles instead of glue sticks because 5 year olds would have a hard time remembering to put the caps on the glue sticks or they would use a whole glue stick on one project.
So, I ordered glue bottles and taught my students how "A Dab of glue will do you" by teaching a song to them to sing while they were gluing. The song worked well and students were gluing and not using too much. The only issue was they had a hard time remembering to shut the orange lid to close the glue bottle so the orange lid didn't clog with dried glue.
I remedied that problem by having a paper clip with me or around me at all times and jamming it in the orange lid to un-clog any dried glue. As the year has progressed my glue bottles have gotten lower and lower and students thought they were clogged when in fact they were not. So, I started gently squeezing the glue bottle to make sure it was indeed clogged before going further with my de-clogging routine.
Now last Friday I had 2 parent volunteers refill all of my glue bottles.
Fast forward to today and visusalize: I am pulling students individudally to take their math assessments. I'm at my reading table and have 4 assessments spread out in front of me and a stack on the table along with various other counting bears and cubes.
Student X brings me a glue bottle and tells me it's clogged. So, I squeeze his glue bottle and because it had recently been refilled...
GLUE EVERYWHERE.
All of my math assessments, all over my scoring guide, my math curriculum binder, counting maniuplatives, and all over my lap.
Amazing.
Imagine my joy.
I love teaching 5 year olds.
Right?
Oh dear! What a mess!
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