Crafts and Facts for Kids: How to Make Spider Paintings

One of my boys, Power P, is all about snakes, lizards, bugs, insects, and - spiders. He likes catching them, observing and always makes sure we free them so that they can go home to their mummies and friends. So, the other day, he caught a spider. Again. Before I knew it, we were talking about making a terrarium for tarantulas, black widows and huntsman spiders. 

Interesting facts about spiders:

- On average, a huntsman spider's leg span can reach up to 15 centimetres.

- When a widow spider is trapped, it is unlikely to bite. They prefer to play dead or flick silk at the potential threat; bites occur when they cannot escape.

- Spiders have 8 legs while insects have 6.

- Spiders are found on every continent of the world except Antarctica.

Having such exotic pets is probably more demanding than Power P imagines, so we agreed to make some spider art. 

Materials:

• magazine rolls, canvas
• paint
• spider templates 

Magazine rolls

Step 1.

Prepare a bunch of magazine rolls. They are really easy to make - here are the instructions.

Step 2.

Glue the rolls together to make your 'canvas'.

Step 3.

I printed and cut out the spiders Power P wanted - a black widow, tarantula and huntsman spider. It goes without saying that using a scalpel is a job for grown-ups!

Step 4.  

You can paint the canvas before making the spider print, or move to the next step.

Step 5. 

Place the spider template on the canvas and put on, spray, spatter or splash with some paint. We used a piece of sponge for this one.

Slowly remove the template.

Step 6. 

You can decorate your painting and play with colours. 

Canvas

Simply put some paint on the canvas...

...paint your spider and play with more colours. Use this opportunity to talk about different painting and colouring techniques, but also about spiders.

Finally, as promised, we put the paintings in Power P's room. 

We'll see how long before we actually get a terrarium...