What you need
- Piece of thin, black poster board
- Piece of thin, white poster board or colored or plain construction paper
- 4 to 8 chenille stems (or pipe cleaners)
- White crayon, marker, or pencil
- Drinking straw
- Tape
- Scissors
- String (you can recycle old shoelaces, if you have them)
- Colored crayons or markers
- Pencil
What you do
1. Download and print the spider template.
2. Use the pencil to trace the spider pattern onto the poster board or construction paper; or design one of your own, close to the same size as the pattern we've provided. Remember that a spider has body parts: the thorax and the abdomen.
3. Use the crayons or markers to decorate your spider. Some spiders have spots or stripes to help them camouflage, others are all one color.
4. Cut out the pieces and glue the bottom edge of the thorax piece to the top edge of the abdomen piece.
5. For the spider's legs, cut 4 pieces of chenille stems about 3 to 4 inches long. Tape them all together in the middle, as shown.
6. Glue the legs on the underside of the thorax, the upper part of the spider's body. When dried completely, tape it down for reinforcement.
7. Cut the straw into 2 pieces about 1 inch long and glue the 2 pieces onto the underside of the abdomen piece. When dried completely, tape it down.
8. Cut 2 pieces of string up to 6 inches long. Tie one end of each string to each end of the pencil.
9. Thread the rest of the string through the straws.
10. On your thin black cardboard draw the delicate web of the orb spider with the white marker or white pencil. A spider squeezes liquid silk out of its spinnerets to build a sticky web.
11. Tape the web near the edge of a table. Tape the pencil with the spider hanging from it on the table right in front of the web.
12. Grab the two loose ends of the string and hold one in each hand. Gently keep moving your hands apart and your spider will start climbing!
13. Have a friend make a spider, too. See who can climb up to their web the fastest. Have fun!
