Giant Spider

So I thought I'd show you a couple huge spiders I've made with the kids in the past. I first drew a big circle on black butcher paper and cut out two. Then I drew a big oval-ish/teardrop shape on the black paper and again cut out two. I stapled the circles together and the ovals together and left an opening on both of the them. The kids then stuffed them both with crumpled up paper. Once they seemed puffy enough, I closed up the openings with more staples, and then stapled the circle to the oval. Can you see a spider in your head yet? Then the kids glued on some eyes made from red craft foam and we added some pedipalps that are beside the mouth with extra thick pipe cleaners. Then I hung the entire thing up from the ceiling in the corner of the room. I added the legs after it was up there. They were made out of black crepe paper, stapled in certain spots to make knees and "ankles." OK, I'll show you now.

I even stayed true to a real spider, attaching all the legs to the front body part. To show you how big it really was, here's a picture of the kids standing under it. They are making faces like they are scared of the spider, but of course I had to blur them.

A few days later I added some of the spider web stuff you can find in the stores around Halloween. That seemed to help support the spider as well.

I made another spider a few years later, but used orange paper (we were all out of black). I liked that better because the kids could color on it and decorate it a bit. We also added fangs that year!

This one was a little smaller than the first, but still big enough to excite the children!

Fun Fact: Spiders actually have 48 knees! They have 6 joints on each of their 8 legs.