Spider Houses

This project was made in our Bug's Life Class for ages 3-4. Making a spider house was perfect for both the theme of the class and for a spooky Halloween project.  When creating projects for kids, I like to offer many different materials and techniques to layer together. 

We started with wood scrap blocks. You can find scraps at lumber yards and probably online somewhere. I have a chop saw so I cut up scraps in shapes I like or need for the kids. I gave each child a rectangle and a triangle, but you don't need to be this literal. A house can be shaped in many ways. I also gave each child some glue and a brush to spread it on.

While the glue is drying on the wood we start to browse through magazines. For this project I tried to find animal or nature magazines to cut out. This girl wanted a bat house so she cut out a few images of bats to use.

We waited for the glue to dry before starting the next step, but if your child is up for it, you could start the next part. If working in a classroom with many kids, I would wait until the sculptures are dry. I bought short flat-head nails to make it easier for the kids to hit with a hammer. I gave them as many nails as they wanted. Some nailed in just 3 and where finished and some really took advantage of the opportunity to use a tool and hammered in up to 15. 

 Then came the web part. I offered many different colors of yarn both bright and dark for them to wrap around the nails to make a spider web. We did talk about who spider webs are all kinds of shapes, big, round and intricate or small and huddled into a corner.

Each child had their own idea of what kind of house, bat or dog or forest or garden type and took delight in the choices they were allowed to make as to hammering and which color of yarn.