Teaching Units

Teaching resources

These teaching resources will help you plan your lessons and prepare interactive classes with experiments related to glue. Dispel the mystery surrounding adhesive materials with your students and explain to them the various types, specialities, applications and other interesting facts. They'll be surprised by what they discover during the experiments, and with all the fun they're having they won't even realise that they are learning too!

This programme was developed under the guidance of Ruhr University Bochum professors and Henkel's adhesive experts.  So let's start experimenting with glue!

Lesson 1: Different types of adhesive

This lesson will introduce your students to the different types of adhesives. Glue specialities go far beyond the ones kids usually know about and have used before. Help your students discover new types of glue and experiment with them in a fun way with active group participation. By asking them to choose the most suitable adhesive for different tasks they'll get to test their stickiness and effectiveness.

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: associative memory, cognitive

Lesson 2: The stickiness of raw materials

This lesson aims to show the students the whole process of creating a glue stick. Investigate with them different substances that are common in our day to day life and can be found in every household. Do an experiment by giving the kids four similar-looking powder substances and water and letting them find out by themselves which one becomes sticky and can be used as a raw material for making glue.

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: memory, self help, motor coordination

Lesson 3: Detecting starch

With this lesson, your students will learn about starch and the ways it can be obtained through chemical processes. They will feel like scientists and see the magic of substance transformation. Use this method to find out whether Pritt's glue stick contains starch, and introduce kids to everyday products from which starch can be isolated.  

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: cognitive, memory, social role

Lesson 4: Obtaining starch from food

Now it's time to work in groups and move on to the next step to isolate some starch from raw materials. Through helpful instructions and a list of necessary materials, the students will be able to work together and discover that foods they already know contain properties to make glue. They'll be amazed!

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: cognitive, motor coordination, social group

Lesson 5: Making starch paste - compare with glue sticks

In the previous steps, your students learned about the nature of adhesive substances and were even able to extract it themselves. Now it's time to understand whether it is suitable for gluing things together or whether there's something missing. Gather all of your students' suggestions about what can make the starch and water mixture stickier. Once they have come up with good ideas, introduce them to the instructions to make a proper starch paste. This process is similar to cooking or baking preparations, which is always fun for kids!

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: cognitive, self help, motor coordination

Lesson 6: Starch paste with soap

Now it's time for your students to create a starch paste with soap and then experiment with the paste they obtained in the previous lesson. Your students will have great fun while learning, as they will discover that with different proportions they can obtain different effects - from a creamy texture to sticky mass. After exploring different options, ask them to experiment by gluing paper together to check whether the paste works!

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: motor coordination, cognitive, spatial relationships

Lesson 7: Producing adhesives from food

It's now time to let your students create their own adhesives! From foods such as gummy bears, chocolate and carrots they will be able to obtain original and different types of adhesives. Your students will discover how external conditions give a sticky effect to different materials, for example, chocolate in the sun. The aim of this process is to test how strong their own self-made adhesives are.

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: cognitive, self help, motor coordination

Lesson 8: Testing adhesives

This lesson will allow your students to compare their own adhesives with Pritt adhesives. The students will use their creativity to organise their own test methods and evaluation systems. In this module we give you some examples of how to perform this process.

 

Age: 5-6 years

Skills: cognitive, self help, motor coordination