Free Spider Preschool Lesson Plans
Spiders may be a ‘sticky’ subject but a preschool favorite!! In this post, you’ll find loads of ideas for a spider preschool theme, including arts and crafts, social-emotional learning, plus math and literacy fun. You’ll find the whole ‘web’ of free spider preschool lesson plans at the end of this post in a free download!
Free Spider Activities for Preschoolers Including Free Preschool Lesson Plans
Spiders may not be your cup of tea, but they are a fascinating theme for preschoolers. Spiders are a common occurrence and it’s likely that your students have seen spiders in their house or outside. Using what children know about spiders and their real-life experiences helps build interest in the classroom.
A spider theme offers preschoolers a chance to interact with a classic spider nursery rhyme, get scientific, and infuse fun arts and crafts. Check out our list of 16+ spider-theme activities for preschool and help make your spider planning a breeze! Whether you plan a spider theme around Halloween or with an insect unit, a spider theme is perfect any time of the year!
FAQ About a Spiders Preschool Theme
You may have a few questions about teaching this preschool theme! Check out these frequently asked questions for how to teach your preschoolers about spiders.
Spiders are interesting creatures with special and unusual attributes! How many creatures do you know of that have eight legs and can have up to twelve eyes? Learning spider safety is also important for young children. Plus, preschoolers are fascinated with spider webs and how they are made!
Pretend to be a spider with this fun gross motor idea of web walking. Or practice crawling around the floor searching for bugs to eat! We have infused spider crafts in our lesson plans that help develop fine motor skills too! Download all the spider activities at the bottom of this post!
Learning about spiders can happen any time of year! Many choose to incorporate a spider theme in October around Halloween. Also, a spider theme can be infused with an insect theme so that students can learn the differences between an insect and an arachnid.
-
Product on sale* Learn At Home Preschool Lesson Plans BundleOriginal price was: $60.00.$22.00Current price is: $22.00.
Important Info about these Spider Lesson Plans
These lesson plans for preschoolers are just one theme in a set of over 40 that will become a part of my free Learn At Home Preschool Lesson Plans.
The Learn at Home Preschool Activity Plans are a set of free activity plans you can use to teach your preschooler at home.
Each set of lesson plans is centered around a weekly theme and includes a minimum of 16 activities that can be done throughout the week. They are designed to be done at home with parents, but many preschool teachers are using these lesson plans, too!
Just glance over the lessons each day, gather the very few materials needed, and you’re ready to go!
All the preschool learning activities are quick and easy to set up, requiring very little (if any at all) prep and only require the most basic of household materials. This makes them especially easy for parents to implement…and this makes preschool teachers happy, too!
These activities also work wonderfully in the classroom, and if you’re a preschool teacher who is remotely teaching you can send these lesson plans to your student’s parents.
Engaging Preschool Activities for a Spider Theme
Whether you are looking for circle time ideas, crafts for kids, or infusing nursery rhymes, these spider-themed activities are full of buggy fun and super easy to prep.
Literacy Activities for a Spiders Preschool Theme
The Itsy Bitsy Spider Book – Print the book and staple it together. Read the story with your preschooler and after reading, act out movements (fingers acting like a spider, climbing up the waterspout, hands moving like the sun, etc.). Encourage your preschooler to re-read the story by using the pictures to retell. After reading, use the counting page at the back to count the raindrops and the spiders. Then decide which one has fewer… the raindrops or the spiders?
Spider Letter Match Cards – Simply print and cut! Start with just a few spider alphabet cards for your preschooler to match (consider starting with the letters in their name) and lay them on the table or hide them around the room. Invite your preschooler to find the match. For even more fun, after they find the matching letter cards, use black sand in a tray to have them practice writing the uppercase letters in the sand with their finger.
Don’t Forget Picture Books!
One of the best ways to teach preschoolers about any theme is by hand-selecting the highest-quality picture books! This is a book list of our best-loved picture books for use with a spider theme.
Math and Science Activities for a Spiders Theme in Preschool
Spider Counting Cards – Help children practice number recognition, counting, sequencing and so much more with these spider counting cards. For even more fun, use plastic spiders, spider rings, or pom poms for fun counting manipulatives.
Spider Webs Fingerprint Counting – Print the spider webs and invite your preschooler to dip their fingers into black paint and dab on the “spiders”. After it dries, use a black marker to add legs. Try this activity with plastic spiders!
Spider Web STEM challenge – Gather sticks, string, and tape to create a spider web! Wrap the string multiple times around the corners of the sticks to keep it strong. Then tape on your first piece of string and start wrapping. Add a toy spider to be sure your web can hold up!
Playful Preschool Learning Activities for a Spiders Theme
Rainbow Scavenger Hunt – Invite your preschooler to hunt and find one object in the house or classroom for every color of the rainbow. Feel free to take it outside and search for rainbow colors!
Sticker Booklet – Great for building fine motor control and just having fun! Use dot stickers, themed stickers, or even holiday stickers! Invite your preschooler to peel and stick to a folded paper booklet. For more fine motor practice, invite them to trace a line to each sticker to create a sticker maze!
Car Bowling – Line up empty plastic bottles in a pin pattern and invite your preschooler to use toy cars to knock them over!
Social-Emotional Activities for a Spiders Preschool Theme
The Very Busy Spider – Go to YouTube and listen to the story, The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. After reading, ask your preschooler, “Why didn’t the spider answer any of the animals? Ask your child if the spider not answering seemed rude to the other animals. What could the spider have done differently to show that he was much too busy to play? Print out character puppets and invite your child to change the spider’s response to be more considerate.
Be Nice to Spiders – Go to YouTube and read Be Nice to Spiders by Margaret Graham. This story follows Helen the helpful spider and her fly-catching skills at the zoo. The zookeeper and the mayor don’t like Helen’s ugly webs but they soon learn that she keeps the zoo in tip-top shape by collecting all the bothersome flies in her web. This story is great for helping preschoolers recognize that we each have our own special talents and we should consider being kind to all animals and insects, especially when they are just doing their job to make the better for us all.
-
Insect Preschool Centers$9.00 -
Insect Emergent Readers$3.00 -
Insects Activity Pack$5.00
Just Plain Fun Spiders Activities for Preschoolers
Creepy Crawly Sensory Bin – This hands-on sensory bin is full of creepy crawlies! Using dried black beans, googly eyes, and of course spiders, this bin is full of buggy fun.
Pin the Spider on the Web – Print an oversized web and wrap a scarf or blindfold around your preschooler’s eyes. Add some tape to the spider cut-out and invite your preschooler to “pin” the spider on the web! Whoever gets closest to the center wins!
Spider Web Handprint Craft – Print the paper web and gather some paint to paint the hands. Overlap the palms and stamp twice to make a spider. Add googly eyes! This spider craft is a great keepsake too!
Get Online Activities for a Spiders Theme
Online Story – Go to YouTube and listen to the story, Aaarrgghh! Spider! by Lydia Monks. After reading, ask your preschooler, “How does the spider feel at the beginning of this story? How does the spider feel at the end of the story? How does the family feel at the end of the story? Would you like to own a pet spider? Why or why not?”
There’s a Spider on the Floor Song – This silly spider song helps kids learn body parts as they sing and move along to the spider on different parts of the monster’s body!
The Itsy-Bitsy Spider – The classic rhyme comes alive with this fun song and video!
Make Your Spider Preschool Theme Come to Life!
Sometimes (not always), what turns a great preschool theme into an exceptional one is having some extra special materials specific to that theme. These are some of the spider toys and activity kits I like to use with my preschoolers.
-
Product on sale* Learn At Home Preschool Lesson Plans BundleOriginal price was: $60.00.$22.00Current price is: $22.00.
Get Your Free Spiders Lesson Plans Here
Love these spider activities and want to add them to your lesson plans? Ready to grab your free printable lesson plans with all these spider theme activities for preschoolers?!
Well, I’ve made a printable for you! Just fill out the form below and it will be sent to your inbox.
Related
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
