Sparkling Spiders!

I love this time of year!  I teach this lesson every year, and those students of mine who have done this before, still get excited every year when I tell them we are making spiders!  For the younger grades K-2, I read The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle.  For the older grades, we discuss some scientific facts about why we see spiders so frequently this time of year and how they are trying to feast up on the insects before the cold winter season eliminates their source of food.

First, I had the students draw a web on their paper using a bottle of glue...(of course, I spent a good amount of time discussing how to squeeze the bottle so a line comes out and not a puddle).  After the webs were drawn with glue, I sprinkled them with glitter.  We set those aside to dry while we drew the spiders and added the line patterns and color.