Kid Territory: Crafts: The Itsy, Bitsy Spider
When done, you can make your spider climb its web.
Use these materials to make your spider.
Cut and glue the body parts together.
Assemble the legs and attach to the body.
Draw the string through the straw pieces, and tie the ends to a pencil.
Most spiders spin sticky webs to catch insects to eat. The spider feels the vibration of the web's silken strands when an insect gets caught in it. Quickly the hungry spider moves to its next meal and wraps more sticky thread around the insect. See how fast you can make your spider move!
What you need
• Thin black & white cardboard,
• 4-8 pipe cleaners
• White marker or white pencil
• Drinking straw
• Tape
• Scissors
• String
• Crayons or markers
• Pencil
What you do
1. On the thin white cardboard use the pencil to trace the spider pattern; or design one of your own, close to the same size as the pattern we've provided. Remember that a spider has two body parts: the thorax, and the abdomen.
The
spider pattern is stored in PDF Format which can be read and
printed with the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader plug-in.
2. Cut the pieces out and glue the bottom edge of the thorax piece to the top edge of the abdomen piece.
3. For the spider's legs, cut four pieces of pipe cleaners about three to four inches long. Tape them all together in the middle, as shown.
4. 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.
5. Cut the straw into two pieces about an inch long and glue the two pieces onto the underside of the abdomen piece. When dried completely, tape it down.
6. Cut two pieces of string up to six inches long. Tie one end of each string to each end of the pencil.
7. Thread the rest of the string through the straws.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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!
11. Have a friend make a spider, too. See who can climb up to their web the fastest. Have fun!
