Make Homemade Glue!

Make Homemade Glue! Activity

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9 Homemade Crafts

Have you ever run out of glue right when you need it? Let your third grader come to the rescue! This surprisingly good glue recipe comes from common kitchen items.

What You Need:

  • 3 empty food jars
  • skim milk
  • vinegar
  • baking soda
  • paper towels
  • plastic funnel
  • coffee filter
  • stirring rod
  • measuring cup and spoons

What You Do:

  1. Pour roughly 1 cup of skim milk into one of the jars
  2. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to the milk.
  3. Stir the mixture (for better results heat the mixture in a pot slowly) and allow to it sit until you observe separation into two cheese-like layers.
  4. Place the funnel in one of the empty jars and insert the coffee filter.
  5. Filter the milk/vinegar mixture by pouring the liquid through the coffee filter.
  6. Once the liquid has drained, scrape the solid residue from the filter.
  7. Use paper towels to dry the solid as much as you can, and return the solid to a clean jar.
  8. Add a small amount of baking soda to the solid.
  9. Mix and test the resulting glue by gluing two pop-sickle sticks or pieces of paper together.

How does it work? Adding vinegar to milk produces a solution that separates into two substances: the white substance is called curds and the liquid is called whey. When filtering the milk the curds are separated out which can be dried with a paper towel to produce a cheese-like substance. The baking soda, when added to the curds, causes them to become sticky glue.


Updated on May 23, 2013
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