Scary Science with Spiders!

What You Need:

• Hula hoop, large picture frame or even a doorway that can be used to frame the web.
• Painter’s tape
• Plastic insects
• Computer with internet access
• Small bowl of Vegetable Oil

What You Do:

1. Before you get your young learner involved, create a painter’s tape spider web. You can make it in an open doorway, a hula hoop or a large picture frame. All you need is something large and open to support the web. Stretch a few long pieces of tape from side to side across the opening. These are the support strands that stretch side-to-side and top-to-bottom across the web. Use smaller pieces to create the spiral out from the middle.
2. When you are done, invite your child to place the insects on the sticky side of the web. 
3. Now ask her to press her fingers onto the web. How does the web feel? It should be sticky to the touch. The sticky web catches the spider’s dinner. How does she think the spider keeps from sticking when it ventures out to grab this meal?
4. Show her online photos of a spider’s web. The support strands, the long strands that run across the entire web, are not sticky. The strands that form the spiral are. Scientists thought that spiders simply walked on the support strands. 
5. Now have her dip her fingertips into the oil. Do they still stick to the web? Recently scientists discovered that spiders have an oily substance on their legs. This oil helps keep them from getting stuck in their own webs.