This spider headband craft is one of my favorite activities from our S is for Spiders theme in the classroom. My students always love making spider headbands. Oh the giggles they make as they wear and play with their adorable spider crafts. Make spider headbands as a Halloween craft, life science activity, or the letter S idea.

Spider Headband Craft

Before making the spider craft we read a couple of nonfiction books about spiders and try to focus on some key facts. Mainly, spiders have eight legs, and most spiders have eight eyes. These are the two facts we included in the spider headband craft.

FIND EVEN MORE SPIDER THEME ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS

FOR HOME PRESCHOOL AND PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS.

Video Tutorial for Spider Headband Craft

Note: This post was originally published in 2012, but updated photos and video were added in 2018 to help clarify instructions.

Step by Step Directions for Spider Headband Craft

To begin I cut long strips of paper to fit each child’s head. I didn’t have strips long enough so we glued two pieces together. No biggie, and it actually helped make the headband a bit stronger.

I also cut enough long thin strips of paper for each child to have eight. The kids counted their leg pieces to double check that they had eight…always getting in a little counting practice when we can.

Get ready to fold. We stacked two pieces one on top of the other. This was just to save them a little time. I remembered from the classroom that my students fizzled out about half way through the folding step. This trick really helped cut down on the folding time.

I modeled how to fold and flip, fold and flip. Folding this way helps keep the kids from just rolling the paper. This whole folding process is excellent fine motor practice, but I did stay close by to help them as needed along the way. They really did a great job with the folding!

Next we laid down our headband piece and decided to leave a blank space in the middle so we could see. The kids added four dots of glue on one side and four dots of glue on the other side before attaching all eight legs.

We then folded the paper over in half and sealed it with glue. This helps the legs stay attached and increases the spider hat durability a bit.

While we were waiting for the legs to dry a bit the kids each picked four big eyes and four small eyes. Then we put all of the big eyes together and counted how many big eyes in all. We did the same with the small eyes and counted how many small eyes in all. Before we separated them out again we counted how many big and small eyes altogether. This was an easy way to practice counting, sorting, opposites, one-to-one correspondence, and a little math vocabulary.

Then we flipped over our headbands and glued on all eight eyes, and again we waited a bit so our eyes wouldn’t slide off our spider heads.

At last we got to staple our headbands together and put them on. I always like to put them on with the legs extending out of the top instead of the bottom. They are just more fun that way! The kids loved creeping around the house like spiders and acting out The Itsy Bitsy Spider song.

GET A FULL WEEK OF SPIDER THEME ACTIVITIES

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

Learn some facts about real spiders and use toy spiders to learn math, literacy and science concepts in this full lesson plan pack for preschool. Watch this short video to see just a few examples of the types of activities and printables included in this set:

The full 31-page Spider Theme Lesson Plan Pack also includes:

• My Spider Emergent Reader
• Spider Babies Fine Motor Activity Mat
• Spider Patterning Task Cards
• Spider Roll and Add Counting Game
• Spider Letter Building Mat
• Itsy Bitsy Spider Story Sequencing Pieces
• Spider Calendar (or general number) Cards
  

  GET YOUR LESSON PLANS

Home Preschool Spider Theme Lesson Plans (in our shop or on TpT)

Preschool Classroom Spider Theme Lesson Plans (in our shop or on TpT)

Hands-On Holidays eBook

Less stress, more connecting this holiday season? Yes, PLEASE!

From the arrival of fall to Halloween to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the last four months of the year can be a wonderful opportunity for making family memories and spending time together, but they can also be stressful as we try to collect ideas, recipes, and activities to try together.

Stephanie Morgan, founder of Modern Parents Messy Kids, a site that’s been voted Best Craft Blog in Parents Magazine and one of babble.com’s Top 50 Craft Mom Blogs, recently released a new eBook to help us have a little less stress and more time to connect with family this year.

Stephanie’s goal is to make it easier on all of us to enjoy the holidays with our kids. Hands-On Holidays is 100 pages full of her family’s very favorite ways to connect as a family over the holiday season. I love the convenience of having so many ideas in one place, and most of them are simple enough for even my toddler to participate in.

The book includes picture book suggestions, DIY decor, activities, and treats. Bonus sections also offer even more ideas to enjoy. Click here to view more details.