Five Fun Preschool Spider Craft Ideas

Curriculum Connections

The following spider crafts will help reinforce basic teaching points while giving young children the opportunity to enhance fine motor skills while exploring and creating art with a variety of materials. Basic teaching points may include: Spiders are not insects; they are a part of the arachnid family. They have eight legs and can have six or eight eyes. Spiders eat insects, by spinning webs. Using children’s literature is a fun way to teach these concepts. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin

Insects and Spiders by Noel Tait

Spiders by Valerie Booden

Spiders by Gail Gibbons

Spiders by Nic Bishop

The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Iza Trapani

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Footprint Spider

You will need:

• Black construction paper approximately 5 x 8-inches
• Black construction paper strips cut approximately 1 x 12-inches
• Chalk
• Scissors
• Glue or stapler

1. For this first part, you may want the children to work with a partner. Instruct each child to use the chalk to trace around their partner’s shoe. Once each child has traced their partner’s shoe, they may use the scissors to cut out the tracing of their foot. This will be the spider’s body.

2. Model how to fold the 1 x 12 in strips of black construction paper accordion style. Each child will need eight strips of black paper as these will be the spider’s legs. Ask each child to fold all eight legs accordion style.

3. The legs should then be glued (or stapled) onto the spider’s body. You will want the children to put four legs on each side of the spider’s body.

Handprint Spider

You will need:

• Black and brown construction paper
• White crayon
• Scissors
• Tape
• Tongue depressor

1. Trace each child’s left hand with a white crayon on the construction paper color of their choosing. Have the children place their right hand next to the tracing of the left hand. Make sure the palm’s overlap just so the thumbs end up in the same position. We only want the spider to have one head (the thumb tracing) and eight legs (the four other fingers from each hand tracing.)

2. Cut out the spider. (Optional step: Fold the legs accordion style.)

3. Tape the tongue depressor to the back of the spider.

Teacher Tip: Now your class has an instant fun prop to use when singing nursery rhymes such as Itsy Bitsy Spider or Little Miss Muffet.

Thumbprint Spider

You will need:

• Black paint
• White paper
• Black markers

1. Instruct the children to dip their thumb into the black paint and make one thumbprint on their paper. This will be the body of the spider.

2. The children should now dip their pinky finger into the black paint and make one pinky print at the top of the thumbprint. This will be the head of the spider. Allow this part of the project to dry for a short time before moving to the next step.

3. Ask the children to draw eight spider legs with the black marker.

Teacher Tip: You could use black ink pads rather than paint.

Paper Plate Spider

You will need:

• Black paper plates (optional: white plates that the children paint black)
• Paintbrush if you are having children paint white plates
• Googly eyes
• Black 1 x 12-inch strips of construction paper
• Glue (or stapler)
• Hole punch
• String

1. If you are having children paint white plates with black paint you will want to do this first. Once the plates are dry you may move to the next step.

2. If you are using black plates, then you will want to start with this step. Give the children a pair of googly eyes to glue onto their spider.

3. Show the children how to fold eight 1 x 12 inch black strips of construction paper accordion style. These will be the spider’s legs of course.

4. Have the children glue (or staple) the eight legs onto their spider.

5. Use the hole punch to make a hole and attach a piece of string to the spiders so you can hang them from the ceiling.

Spider Hat

You will need:

• Black paper plate
• Scissors
• Black strips of construction paper approximately 1 x 8-inches
• Stapler
• Glue
• Googly eyes

1. Cut the middle section of the plate out to fit each child’s head.

2. Fold the eight legs accordion style and staple four legs to each side of the plate.

3. Glue the googly eyes on the plate.

Fabulous Keepsakes

Through the use of common preschool art materials your class will have a variety of options for spider crafts all year long. Preschoolers will love taking these keepsake preschool spider crafts home to share with their family members.

Resources

Author’s teaching experience

Images belong to the author

Bishop, Nic. Spiders, Scholastic Inc, 2007

Booden, Valerie. Spiders, Creative Education, 2011

Carle, Eric. The Very Busy Spider, Penguin Group, 1985

Cronin, Doreen. Diary of a Spider, Harper Collin’s, 2005

Gibbons, Gail. Spiders, by Holiday House, 1994

Noel, Tait. Insects and Spiders, Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2008

Trapani, Iza. The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Scholastic, 1998