Handprint Spider

What You Need:

• Construction paper
• Black paint
• Paintbrush
• Yarn
• Google eyes (optional)

What You Do:

1. Help your preschooler paint their palms and fingers with black paint. Do not put paint on their thumbs.
2. Let your child press their painted hands on the paper with their fingers spread apart and the base of their palms touching. The handprints will look like a spider with eight legs.
3. Help your child count the number of legs on the spider. How many legs does their spider have? How many legs do real spiders have? If insects only have six legs, can a spider be an insect?
4. Help your child glue google eyes or use crayons to color eyes at the top of the handprint spider.
5. Use yarn to make a web for your child's spider. Help your child make concentric circles of glue around the spider. Cut pieces of yarn and let them press the yarn on to the circles of glue. Help them glue lines across the circles, creating a web design. Cut yarn pieces and let your child press them to the lines of glue. The final product is a sweet spider and web, commemorating your little one’s hands this Halloween season.

Take a morning walk and go on a “spider web hunt.” Spider webs look especially amazing when covered with morning dew. Talk to your preschooler about the web and its purpose. Isn’t it clever of the spider to build a web to catch breakfast? Look for the circles in the web and talk about the shape. How many circles can your preschooler count in the web?