Grades 2–3
Adhesives are used to stick things together. Many adhesives occur in nature and have important uses for plants and animals.
What You Need
- Flour
- Measuring cup
- Egg white < !!! >
- Food coloring
- 4 small bowls
- 4 plastic spoons
- Aluminum foil
- Cotton balls
- Toothpicks
- Small pieces of cloth
- Glitter
- Safety scissors
- Colored yarn or ribbon
- Colored paper
What to Do
Help your child to search your home to track down everything that she can that is sticky. See how many of the following she can find:
- Tape
- Peanut butter
- Postage stamps
- Envelopes
- Honey
- A decal on a t-shirt
- Spackle
- An adhesive bandage
Ask your child to make a list of things in nature—animals, plants and so forth—that have adhesive properties or are sticky. For example:
- Spiders that use sticky threads to create webs to catch their food
- Tree sap
- Barnacles that stick to boats, ships and rocks
Next, ask her to think of adhesives that are used in hospitals? in offices? in auto repair shops?
Help your child to make a poster or collage using adhesives by doing the following:
- Make three bowls of flour-and-water paste. In each bowl, add 1/4 cup water to 1/2 cup flour and mix until smooth. Add a different-colored food coloring to each of the three bowls and mix. Use the pastes to make colored shapes on a poster board or heavy paper.
- Crack open an egg and separate the white into a bowl. Use the white as a clear glue to attach aluminum foil, cotton balls, toothpicks, cloth, glitter, ribbon, yarn and colored paper—whatever works to create a collage.
What makes glue, paste or tape stick to things? Wood, paper and many other materials have tiny cracks and holes in them. When we glue things together, sometimes the glue seeps into the tiny openings and hardens,making the materials stick together. Other times, the molecules on the surface of an object get tangled up with the glue molecules,making the objects stick together.
