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What is the deal with glue sticks?


GoVanGogh
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I often read/hear about people stocking up on glue sticks.

 

What are you using them for?

Do you lapbook? Do lots of crafts?

 

We are starting our sixth year of homeschooling and I just tossed out the one and only glue stick I have ever bought. :lol:

 

I feel so... un-schoolish that we don't use glue sticks like everyone else. :tongue_smilie:

 

Granted I only have one child and he hates craft projects.

When we do lapbook or add things to our timeline, we use double-sided tape. But I only go through a couple things of tape a year.

 

I'm honestly perplexed that other homeschool families go through dozens of glue sticks. Are we missing out on something?

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My kids LOVE to cut out stuff they've drawn or colored and stick it on construction paper as a "final project".

 

Glue sticks are just so much less messy than wet glue, which pools and puddles b/c my kids always use way too much!

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Oh wow. We went through them like crazy when the kids were little. Our curricula called for them a lot back then. We did Rod and Staff preschool/K workbooks and then 1st grade workbooks. Both years called for a lot of cut and paste x 2 kids.

 

Plus my kids always loved to cut and glue stuff and we did lots of crafts. Plus they would leave the lids off and they would dry up, so I threw a lot away because of that.

 

We don't scrapbook a lot, but when we do we use gluesticks.

 

Now we mostly use bottled glue for projects. It just works better. But glue sticks are perfect for little hands. This past year (2nd and 4th) was the first that we haven't needed them.

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My kids went through glue sticks like crazy in public elementary school, but we've very rarely used them at home. I've only had boys at home up until now and we aren't crafty at all, so tape usually does the trick.

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We do some lap booking...but it is the crafts that do us in. All three of my kids who are old enough to do crafts spend hours at it. My boys can easily spend a couple hours cutting pictures out (catalogs, magazines, clip art I've printed out), and gluing them onto other sheets of paper.

 

Though part of the reason we go thru so many is that the lids disappear before the glue is gone. And way too many liquid glue bottles get hopelessly clogged before the glue is all gone. :glare:

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We should have stock in lue sticks! My kids go through them like crazy. They cut and glue everything! We do some lap booking and crafts for school, but they go through the majority of glue sticks making puppets or books or whatever else they can think to glue. I am always amazed at how many glue stickS and tape rolls we can go through!

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We don't do any crafts or lapbooks for school, but my kids can go through a glue stick in the blink of an eye. They come up with all sorts of creations that need glue all day long - dioramas, paper dolls, textured pictures (cotton balls, dried leaves, etc.), greeting cards...the possibilities are endless. I don't know where my kids got the crafty gene (it sure wasn't me!), but they got it good! :lol:

 

(I buy glue sticks instead of glue bottles because they are all over-gluers. And they will go through a roll of tape in an hour, and tape is much more expensive than glue sticks.)

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My kids love to do craft things, but I hate glue sticks. I can never find ones that don't dry out way to fast and usually things don't stay stuck very well with them.

 

I actually went to the local teacher supply store and bought a gallon of elmer's school glue with a pump. They just put a pump of glue in plastic condiment cups I got at Costco and use a small paintbrush to apply it to their projects.

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I actually went to the local teacher supply store and bought a gallon of elmer's school glue with a pump. They just put a pump of glue in plastic condiment cups I got at Costco and use a small paintbrush to apply it to their projects.

 

That is brilliant....now if I could just keep the three year old from pumping it all out at once, I would be all set! :laugh:

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That is brilliant....now if I could just keep the three year old from pumping it all out at once, I would be all set! :laugh:

 

I keep it on a shelf that anyone under age 6 wouldn't be able to get to. My youngest is going to be 7 so he's careful enough to get it, but he also hates to be messy so he's always asked for help. I just got lucky that way.

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I think my kids eat them :glare:

 

We go through one a week here. My kids never stop glueing things.

 

I'm jealous of those who say they are cheap -in Australia they are $4-$7 for a pack of two - not cheap. The cheaper ones don't work well either :glare:

 

Glue lasts longer then tape here -one glue stick lasts a week - 1 roll of tape -half a day :lol: My kids will tape nothing but the tape to paper just to be tapeing :D

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Every glue stick I have ever bought dries up before I can use it. So when I do decide to use them they are worthless to me. We have the good old white glue. I'm thinking I will store some in a small sealable cup and let the kids apply it with a paint brush. This will be especially good for my 4 yo.

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We go through them like crazy! We do occasional lapbooks and Literature/ History Pockets, but mostly they are used by my dc in their free time. They love making all kinds of things out of paper, and I buy glue sticks monthly.

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:w00t:

I often read/hear about people stocking up on glue sticks.

 

What are you using them for?

Do you lapbook? Do lots of crafts?

 

We are starting our sixth year of homeschooling and I just tossed out the one and only glue stick I have ever bought. :lol:

 

I feel so... un-schoolish that we don't use glue sticks like everyone else. :tongue_smilie:

 

Granted I only have one child and he hates craft projects.

When we do lapbook or add things to our timeline, we use double-sided tape. But I only go through a couple things of tape a year.

 

I'm honestly perplexed that other homeschool families go through dozens of glue sticks. Are we missing out on something?

 

It's funny you should bring this up today....

 

My dd LOVES craft projects. And we did the R&S books when she was little, and tons of paper projects. Now she loves lapbooks and History Pockets.

 

I just went out last week to buy "new supplies" for the "new school year" and for some reason I included glue sticks on the list. Everything else on the list I checked first and for some reason I forgot to check for glue sticks. When I got home, I found I had like 5 new ones...even a craft crazy kid doesn't need THAT MANY GLUE STICKS.

 

Maybe I have just been brainwashed to hoard gluesticks :party:. When the end of the world comes, I will be ready...to glue things....

 

 

I hate regular glue. It gets everywhere and is a pain to squeeze out of the bottle, or is always dried up for me. But I can see if you have one kid who never crafts, then you would never need a glue stick!

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I've never bought them either. I don't encourage much gluing. I just hate how much waste is involved with glue sticks. Too much plastic in the land fill! I buy the occasional bottle of glue when needed. I've bought maybe 2 or 3. Those can be rinsed out and recycled.

 

I always feel bad about it, but most of the gluing we do is paper gluing and we do really go through them. A bottle is terrible for that on many levels. I guess I could get rubber cement... Or make paste like in that thread from awhile back...

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I stopped buying them because we didn't use them often enough, and then they were always dry.

 

We use Tombow Adhesive. I own five of them because I also scrapbook:

http://www.discountofficeitems.com/office-supplies/general-supplies/tape-glue-adhesives/adhesive-film-dispensers/tombow-mono-permanent-adhesive-with-dispenser/p13930.html

 

I buy the refills here:

http://www.discountofficeitems.com/tombow-mono-permanent-adhesive-refill-tom62202-office-products-13931.html

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We went through an embarrassing amount of glue sticks this year. :blushing: DD is in love with all things crafty and so we go though a tremendous amount of art supplies . I am waiting on a great sale so that I can stock up for this coming year.

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We use glue sticks for lapbooks, crafts, etc and go through a ton. I was in a panic last week when I realized we had run out and I had to resort to pulling out my scrapbooking double sided tape.

 

If it is a glue product we likely use a lot of it. White glue I buy the gallon size 1-2 times per year. I usually start the year with 4 normal sized bottle of white glue and then just refill them as needed. White glue we also use to make gak, decoupage paste etc. we also have the clear liquid glue that is in the tubes with the spongy peice on the tip, the kids use it for crafts but I am not a big fan of it.

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We do notebooking, with lapbooking components on the pages for a 3D effect. :001_smile: I just got 20 gluesticks for 2.00!

 

Which store? We use a ton of glue sticks, too.

 

I've never bought them either. I don't encourage much gluing. I just hate how much waste is involved with glue sticks. Too much plastic in the land fill! I buy the occasional bottle of glue when needed. I've bought maybe 2 or 3. Those can be rinsed out and recycled.

 

It's plastic, so I recycle glue sticks, too. I usually pull out the little gluey end and chuck that, but the lid and the tube I recycle.

 

We seem to go through a lot of glue bottles, too. I went to grab one the other day to use with my youngest ds and his cousin, only to find 4 bottles with about 10% left in the bottle. I had to go grab a new bottle, but I also took the time to combine all the remaining glue into one bottle and recycle the empties, too.

 

I may have to actually buy a big giant bottle of glue and just use that to refill the smaller bottles. Where do I get those? Lakeshore Learning? Business Costco? Office Depot? Is it cheaper?

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Anything paper can be glued (glue sticks are least messy). My ds only goes through about 4/year, another 10-12 for my day care kids. However, my ds can go through a roll a tape a day if I don't take it from him. Right now he's at about a roll a week- and I have to hide the good stuff because he'll need "just one piece" and then it's gone.

Edited by raceNzanesmom
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My 4 yo loves glue sticks--he spends part of every afternoon cutting up sheets of construction paper and gluing the bits to other sheets of construction paper. Hours of fun!

 

My 4 year old does this too!!! Plus we do lapbooks. I keep white glue around too, but glue sticks are much less messy!

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