Discuss that spiders are arachnids and are oviparous (lay eggs)
Thumbprint spiders- I usually have the children do this in their journals and then
write about spiders. They make their thumbprint with paint or stamp pad and then draw
8 legs on it. You could put two thumbprints together to make it have two body parts.
Spoon spider- Take a plastic spoon (I use black ones), turn it upside down and use a
twisty to tie a Tootsie Roll pop under the spoon. Then you glue a black pom pom on top
of the spoon and glue on eyes. Use pipe cleaners for legs.
Spider booklet- We make a spider booklet with spider facts on it.
Spider headband- Have the students paint or color a sentence strip black. Then have
them take 8 thin strips of black construction paper and fold back and forth. Then staple
the legs to the sentence strip and fit to children’s heads.
I have the children trace and cut two circles, fold and glue on 8 thin strips of paper
and attach a string and hang from ceiling.
Glue spider web- have students draw a web on black paper and then trace it with
glue. When it dries it looks like the web from The Very Busy Spider.
Spider crackers-Using circle crackers, make a peanutbutter cracker sandwich, put 8
pretzels into the peanutbutter in the sandwich. Glue on 2 m and m’s for eyes using
peanutbutter as glue.
Egg Carton Spider-Cut cardboard egg cartons into six sections, each having two egg
cups. This will create a spider with two body parts. Paint the egg cups and glue on eyes.
Using four 12” pipe cleaners, poke the pipe cleaners into the egg cup and bend them to
form a set of legs.
We do sequence cards for the lifecycle of a spider
Last year, I captured a Yellow Garden Spider and took it to school. We put it into an
aquarium and I made a frame for it out of sticks. Our spider made webs and laid an egg
sac for us. And it did finally die like Charlotte did in the story. It was quite sad, but a
very good learning experience.
Class web- Have the students sit in a big circle. I start with a ball of yarn and then
roll it to a child while holding on to my end. That child then holds his end and rolls it to
another child and so on and so on. When everyone is holding part of the yarn, you have a
big spider web!
I have two sheets we do with Miss Spider’s Tea party- Counting all Bugs and Miss
Spider’s Guest from The Teacher’s Helper Sep/Oct 1996.
We do a LEA class story on spiders
We will be doing a Spider Project over the internet this year.
A parent came in this year and made handprint spiders. Here is a picture of one.
Letter Recognition:
1. Letter Charts-Ww for web and Zz for the sound a fly makes. (Spiders eat
flies..sometimes I have to stretch to integrate!)
2. Picture and Words-I have a large Spider we label. We also label body parts and the
lifecycle of a spider. I like the children to come up with vocabulary we have learned
such as arachnid, oviparous, abdomen, etc.
3. I also start doing a lot with word families now. It not only allows them to learn new
words, but helps with beginning sounds. I usually start with -at, because Little Miss
Muffet sat.....and it for the Itsy Bitsy Spider.
I have the students write about spiders all week. We make the thumbprints in our
journals one day and glue the sequence cards of the lifecycle of a spider in our journals
too to write about.
