Spider Web Letters

Materials

• black construction paper
• white chalk, pencil, or crayon
• liquid glue
• glitter or glitter glue

In early fall, go on a spider web hunt to look for orb weavers.

Background Information

Some spiders make an orb web to trap their prey. They use silk produced by glands within their body and extruded through spinnerets on their abdomens. The liquid silk hardens quickly and is incredibly strong. Some strands within their web are sticky and some are dry. A spider moves about on the dry strands but a spider’s feet are also oily so that they don’t stick to their own web. The spider attaches itself to the web with a silk strand and hangs out in the web or below the web waiting to feel a vibration from a trapped insect. It rushes out and wraps its catch in fresh silk for eating at a later time or it will snack on its prey immediately. Spiders can’t chew so they inject poison through their fangs into a prey’s body. The poison turns the prey into a liquid and the spider sips a tasty meal.

Activity

Each child will need a piece of black construction paper. They can use their paper vertically or horizontally.
First they need to use chalk to draw a line that curves from corner to corner at the top of their paper.

Next they ‘hang’ a capital letter ‘Y’ from their line. Before they start, you might want them to make a small dot in the middle of their paper to aim for. Help them touch their chalk to the line on the left and slide down to the right going to the middle of their paper. Now touch the line on the right and slide to the left going to the middle of the paper and touching the first line. They should have a letter ‘V’ hanging down. Finally make a line going straight down from the bottom of the ‘V’ and the ‘Y’ is complete.