Our preschool age students (ages three and four) have spent their first two weeks in preschool exploring the different tools they can and will continue to use in preschool. A tool they used this week was the ever popular squeeze bottle filled with colorful glue…
You can’t go into this process with the mindset that the children are going to lightly squeeze a few lines and dots of glue and then go off on their happy little way to do something else. No, this is a process that the children are seriously invested in…
They will start off with a few squiggles of lines here and there and then realize that they can make puddles too…
The children will stick with this process for a long time. They work their fine motor muscles, they focus, they trade colors, they make lines, dots, puddles, and just keep at it…
We could turn this process into a lesson on regulating glue but for today, the focus was on exploring. You see, before we can begin the process of building self-regulation skills, we first need to give the children opportunity to explore so that they can fulfill their intrinsic need for making puddles. As the children explore, we can use the words “dots, lines, blob, less, more, puddles, circles,” and the list goes on…
The children are using a cardboard canvas for their colorful glue designs and it will take a few days for their puddles designs to dry…
Each new school year comes a new group of students who sit down to explore the process of squeezing out colorful glue. Yet within just a few weeks, the children quickly begin to understand that they need to regulate their use of glue for the various kinds of gluing processes we offer. Young children are so capable and quick to figure it all out.
Links to Grow On
Squeezable and Colorful Waterplay
Designing with DIY Colorful Glue in Preschool
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