Spiderling Web Craft for Kids
Baby web-building spiders spend their first days in a messy, shared web with all their brothers and sisters. This may be a part of their mother’s bigger web. They feed on pollen stuck to the sticky web threads. As they begin to grow, they shed their skin. After one or two sheds, they disperse to build a web just like mom’s, but smaller. They don’t have to learn how to build their web; they just know.
With a group of friends and a few supplies, you can help sibling “spiderlings” disperse and build their very own webs!
What you need:
- Stretchable spider webbing
- Plastic spiders
- Branched twigs (for extra fun, go outside as a group to collect your twigs as part of the activity)
- Scissors
What to do:
- Go outside to gather enough branched twigs for your spiderlings. Or if you prefer, gather them in advance to have them ready for your craft.
- Cut the stretchable webbing into small portions – 1 per spiderling.
- Stretch the small portion of spider web in every direction. Stretch it up, stretch it down, stretch it to the left, and to the right!
- Wrap the stretched spider webbing around your branched twig.
- Place your spider in its new web!
Teachers: email info@naturealberta.ca to receive a PowerPoint presentation that includes animals in Alberta, homes they live in, and how they adapt to changing seasons (including migration and hibernation), to go along with this hands-on activity.