Exploring the wonders of spider webs

The boys and girls in the Early Learning Centre’s Jacaranda room have been fascinated with spiders and their webs. Their interest began in the playground when the children noticed that the spiders had been very busy spinning webs. This led to the class going on a spider web hunt around the School with webs being found in trees, on the cubbyhouse and the fence in the playground.

After reading The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle the children noticed a number of things about spiders that they shared with the group.

Ella-Grace The spider made a web, he went round and round. Amelia The silk comes out of the spider’s body, the fly gets stuck in the web. Kailyn The spider made the outside of the web first, then it makes the middle. He makes the web to catch the fly then he eats it. To further investigate just how a spider makes its web, the class watched a short film showing a spider creating its web and the intricate detail involved. The children then had the opportunity to draw webs and make them using pipe cleaners and fine thread.

In the classroom, a range of learning experiences and activities involving insects and spiders were set up including a lightbox, natural resource construction, observational drawing and dramatic play to encourage the children to explore and acquire further information about creepy crawlies.

‘It was so exciting to see the children engage and explore the outdoor environment with such wonder and amazement as they discovered the intricate details of a spider web. This created a fantastic opportunity for this learning to flow into the classroom where we were able to support and extend this inquiry through such a wide variety of mediums,’ said Amy Goodale, ELC Teacher.