(pictures coming soon)
You will need
An old, black glove,
A couple of small pom poms (for how to make pom poms guide click here) or fluffy spheres (available in most craft shops)
Small disc shaped pieces of felt, about the size of a penny (you could use googly eyes, or round stickers instead)
PVA glue
Optional extras: scraps of fabric and/or wool to decorate, needle and thread, glitter glue, fabric paint, scraps of card.
How to
make it:
Choose two colours
of felt discs. One should be smaller than the other. Pop your hand
into the glove. This will give you a better idea of where to
position the eyes. Glue the pom poms
onto the glove on the back of your hand, near to your knuckles. It
usually works better, if the pom
poms are placed close together. Glue the felt discs on to the pom
poms, to create the eyes. Hey presto! A spidery puppet! Wiggle your
fingers to make the puppet move.
You can decorate your puppet, by
gluing different shapes on to it, or use fabric paint or
glitter glue. You could make eyelashes using wool scraps. You could
glue googly eyes on to the eye
discs, or use larger googly eyes
instead of using the felt.
If you are doing this activity with a class of
children, it’s a good idea to request old and odd gloves are brought
in from home. You can make them any colour you like. Blacks and
browns often look more spidery, but real spiders come in a variety
of colours and sizes. You could talk about why this might be so.
(camouflage, environment etc).
You could use smaller pom poms and glue
on eight eyes, instead of two. You could stitch the pom poms into
place to make the puppet last longer. You could cut three fingers
from another glove and stuff them, before stitching them onto your
puppet, to create a spider with eight legs.
This activity is fun to
do at home, especially near hallowe’en or could be done in school to
tie in with literacy themes or life cycles and even numeracy
(counting the legs and eyes) or at nursery schools and
playgroups to support communication skills.
Why not
make your own incy wincy spider display? You could use twisted
polythene, blue and green paper scraps, silver foil or transparent
materials to create a water ‘spout’. Or simply sing incy wincy
spider, while wearing your glove puppets.
