We've spent a lot of time learning about spiders in the weeks leading up to Halloween this year. The kids have loved learning about the life cycle, and I'm pretty sure "spiderling" is my daughter's new favorite word. We are always looking for crafts to incorporate into our lesson, so we decided to put a new spin on the old pipe-cleaner spiders.
I'll be honest. I couldn't remember how I made the little pom pom/pipe cleaner spiders I know I made growing up. I'm sure I could have searched Pinterest for ideas, but I needed some yarn for another project and I came across this fuzzy black yarn in my stash which I thought would be perfect! A few chenille stems, a couple of googly eyes, and a hot glue gun were the only other things we needed to create a cute group of spiders.
We started by taking two stems and cutting them in half to create the legs for our spider. (To make the spiderlings, we cut one stem into fourths.) We took the four pieces of chenille stem and tied the end of the string around them.
Then we wrapped the yarn around the middle of the stems until we had a "body" the size we wanted. (Wrapping the yarn tightly around each side of the body at the end helped it keep it's shape.) We used our hot glue to secure the end of the string to the bottom of the body, and also to glue on our eyes.
Finally, we bent the ends of our legs down so our spider could stand up. They came out really cute and the kids love playing with them! They would also make a cute diy decoration for Halloween.
We added a cotton ball egg sac to our spider and spiderling to make a life cycle. Add a spider web used for decorating and you have a quick, fun, diy playset!
You could use different colored stems and yarn to create a whole collection of fuzzy spiders. How will you use the spiders you make? Let me know in the comments!
