The interest in spider webs started one morning when educator Aly took her group of children outside and Ava noticed a spider web on the fence. Aly then started to explain to Ava that spiders can spin its own webs, and bugs get caught in them, and when they do that’s what a spider eats. This interaction gave the educators so many different ideas to continue the interest on spider webs. That day when we came back into the classroom, educator Sara thought it would be fun to make our own spider webs with string and glue. The children used their fine motor skills as they spread glue all over black paper. The children then used the strings to stick it on top of the glue. As the children were making their spider webs, Sara asked the children if they knew how a spider makes it web, and Henley responded by saying “Mommy and Daddy.” As we were creating our spider webs, Aly started to make a really big web for our bulletin board called “Toddlers Web.” This is where we will put our little spider webs that we had made.
A few days went by and we made another spider web on top of one of our sensory bins. Aly used tape and made a spider web on top of the bin, then we added some bugs. The children were given tweezers and asked to used their fine motor skills to try to save the bugs.
The children were still talking about spider webs so the educators continued to expand on their learning. One morning the children got caught in a spider web that the educators created outside. They had to use their spatial awareness to figure out how to get out. The children problem solved by climbing over, and ducking under the strings that educator Trish had put out. Johnny, Raphael, and Harrison were in the spider web for a long time thinking about ways to get out of the spider webs. Ava kept yelling “help I’m stuck!” Palmer then came to her rescue as the educators continued to give the children verbal instructions on how to get out. Quinn was very excited to come give us a high five when he made it out!
Lastly, our spider web needed some spiders so of course we had to make some. We then put out some paper plates, that had some holes punched in them for the legs, and some pipe cleaners. This gave the children the opportunity to pick how many legs, and what colour they wanted their spider to have. We then used our fine motor skills to put the pipe cleaner through the holes and Aly helped the children secure them so they wouldn’t come out. Next the children noticed a different type of brush- a toothbrush! So that is what we used to paint our spiders black. We were hoping using the toothbrushes to paint the spiders would allow for a different texture to show through, but it didn’t work out the way the educators had thought! The children still enjoyed painting with a different type of brush! The last step was to add pictures of our faces to our spider’s bodies then we added them to our web. Now our spider web has lots of spiders crawling through it!
