Spider Cups

So I thought it would be easy to find black paper cups this time of year, but no. Every store just sold the big plastic ones with ridges. Then I looked for any solid-color paper cups. Still nothing. So I ended up buying some monster cups from the birthday party section at Target and painted them black. It took two coats of paint, but went fairly quickly.

Then I poked eight holes near the top of the cup (which would actually be the bottom since they will be used upside down), four on each side. I also poked two holes a little further up near the front of the cup. You'll be able to see that in a bit. I set out some black pipe cleaners (cut into smaller pieces) and wiggle eyes that were stuck on glue dots. I also cut some triangles out of red and white paper and put those on glue dots as well.

First you take the black pipe cleaner and string it through the two holes near the front of the cup.

Those are the spider's pedipalps. Then we used silver pipe cleaners for the legs by stringing them through the remaining eight holes, using 4 whole pipe cleaners.

You just go in one side and out the other. Then the kids used a metallic Sharpie to draw a mouth and then stuck on the eyes and fangs. The glue dots worked great! Then they bent the pipe cleaners into legs.

If you bend them just right, you can actually get the cup to be up off the table. We sure did have some creepy crawlies!

In the past, I've spent an entire week teaching about spiders. I love my spider theme. But at my new center, I don't get to choose my themes. (Boo.) So I just taught some basic spider facts during one day of my Halloween theme. I used this amazing book:

It's by Nic Bishop. It has the coolest close-up pictures of spiders I've ever seen! Look at those fangs! And it's filled with great information. I also read this book:

"'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly." Ooh, I love it! It's by Tony DiTerlizzi, but it's based on the famous cautionary tale by Mary Howitt. If you haven't read it, go get it!

Fun Fact: Spiders have pale blue blood!

10-18-12 UPDATE: We made these again this year (although I found and bought black paper cups!) but used colored glitter pipe cleaners. I love the added color!