Spiders: Learn, Craft, and Write

When my son did the Build a Bug activity, all the differences between insects and spiders popped up and got me thinking about how fun it would be to make a spider. This wasn’t the first time we’ve explored these little eight-legged wonders of nature. But it was certainly our most detailed study.

To begin, we read Weaving Wonders: Spiders in Your Backyard, a fantastic book that talks about all things spiders; it even has a diagram of their body parts!

After reading, I gave my son the following supplies:

2 styrofoam balls (one slightly smaller than the other)

1 toothpick

5 black pipecleaners (4 of which were cut in half using nail clippers)

8 googly eyes

School glue

He stuck the two balls together for the spider’s body using the toothpick, poked in the 8 small black pipecleaners (for legs), glued on googly eyes, and clipped some small sections of pipecleaner to add as the spider’s spinnerets. Meet Cyger the Spider!

Afterwards, he wrote what he’d learned on a nifty spider recording sheet I’d created.

To download a PDF of the spider writing prompt, click here.