Another one of my SLP friends introduced me to Aleene’s Tack It last year. I pulled out some Christmas stickers that I had laminated a few years ago and decided to try Tack It so that I could hang the Christmas tree up on the door and have my clients walk, hop, run, crab-walk across the room to add the ornaments. Nothing like a little physical activity to help with the wiggles-especially around this time of year.
Tack it is a sticky glue that you can put on the back of laminated items which holds it’s stickiness for a long time after it has dried. If you have a coupon for a craft store, you should be able to get it for less than 5.00 a bottle. And it’s quick. I was able to apply it in about 5 minutes per product. I still use velcro for communication books etc-but for other products I’m planning to use tack-it.
It’s really sticky, so use it sparingly. You can just squeeze some on the back, but I recommend using a brush to move it around. It seemed like a thinner layer was easy to attach and remove then when I just squeezed some glue onto the back. I do not recommend using your fingers like I did the first time. I had paper towels stuck to every finger and had to find a bottle of Goo Gone to remove it. If I didn’t think I’d ruin my camera-I would’ve posted a picture of SLP paper towel hands.
Here are some ideas for how to use Tack-It:
Make your own DECORATE IT kits
I picked two bigger sticker sets from Target’s Dollar Spot last year. I laminated the cardboard base (snowman/tree) and stickers. I spread the adhesive on the back. I like to hang the snowman or tree on my door and have my clients earn pieces to build the tree/snowman. Everything seems just a little more fun when it’s off of my speech therapy table. My clients love having to run, hop, crab walk etc. over to the wall to put their piece on. I’m stingy with the pieces though. They have to do 20 repetitions for speech sounds or 5-10 targets for other skills.
Build an OLAF:
Disney had this cute FREE printable for kids to build their own Olaf. I printed it on card stock, laminated it and then cut out the shapes. I put Tack it glue on the back. We can make the snowman on the table, or on the wall.
Teachers Pay Teachers
Why not jazz up some of your TPT gems. If you’ve used it a few times, it might be worth it try a little Tack-It. I’ve used velcro or just had students put pictures on the boxes for some of my interactive flashcard projects. Now I can hang up the picture and have the students stick the pictures onto it. We could even hang it up UNDER my speech table and have them lay down underneath to do the activity.
Have you seen some of the Interactive story sets on Teacher’s Pay Teachers? I know my friend Jessica from Figuratively Speeching is working on one. Check back to see hers. Jenna Rayburn from the Speech Room News has come out with a few interactive vocabulary books that look amazing!
Glue Dots
I LOVE glue dots for quick craft projects. Check out this cool tutorial on how you can make your own glue dots.
Here are a few more ideas:
- Add more stick to your color form sets.
- Try on a puzzle to use for motivation or as a duration map.
- Laminate and use on super hero or cartoon character stickers. Now you can have your students follow directions with positional concepts. You could also work on body parts (place batman on your foot.)
Thank you for this helpful post. I’m going to give this stuff a try! Looks like it works great!
Great idea! I also LOVE temporary glue dots (which I just discovered at Dollar Tree)!!
I’ve never used the temporary Glue dots-I do love the regular ones!
I wondered how it would work on the interactive books. Much cheaper than buying velcro!!!
I really like it-but haven’t tried it for long term use. I’d try it on some smaller products first before adding to anything too expensive. (I just had one laminated piece break-but I also had too much Tack-It on that piece.)
Definitely trying this!!!