Tis the season for spooky spider crafts! Halloween is a great time to talk about spiders and other “scary” animals with your preschooler.
Make a spider sandwich. Take two oval-shaped cookies and sandwich icing and thin licorice strings in the center. Four licorice strings on each side and you get bonus points for being anatomically accurate, since spiders have eight legs. Gummies are good for eyes. Or if you’re looking for a healthier alternative, use a cookie cutter to make circular sandwiches with flat fillings like cream cheese. Place the sandwich in the middle of the plate and make lines of blueberry or raisin legs that extend out of the spider’s body. This can be a good counting exercise – how many blueberries does it take to make a realistic-looking spider leg? They never taught you that one in math class.
Painted handprints are versatile craft materials. Have your child dip his hand in paint and make dark hand prints on paper. When they dry, cut them out and arrange two over top of each other, with four fingers poking out to each side. Decorate these with fancy jewels, glitter, or even glowing or googly eyes, then punch a hole in the spider and hang by a window or door with some thread.
It’s also easy to make a spider out of a paper or plastic bag. Take an old bag and stuff it with newspapers. This is a particularly good task for the smaller folks in the family – they love scrunching newspaper. Tie up the bag and add cardboard legs on each side and you have a giant spider that can live amongst your Halloween pumpkins.
Use kid-sized gloves to make a spooky spider puppet! Choose the small, black gloves that fit easily over your child’s hand. Your preschooler can paint eyes on the knuckles and make feet at the fingertips. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you can cut a small ball in half and glue it to the top of the glove, making three-dimensional eyes.
If you’re outside playing in the leaves, why not make a giant spider web? Leaves are such fun to play with, and once you’ve made the requisite giant leaf pile, you can have fun making leaf trails and turning them into wacky shapes. Create a spider web out of leaves in the park and see if anyone walks into it!
What sorts of spooky crafts are you planning with your preschooler this Halloween? Do you have any great fall crafts to share?