Eric Carle is hands-down my favorite children's author/illustrator. Last week in class, we read his book, The Very Busy Spider. We followed it up with two crafts that encouraged fine motor skills.
The first was this zig-zag legs spider. I cut out the circle and strips for the children (though older children could at least cut the circle on their own). The kids then zig-zagged eight strips of paper to make the legs. This is often a very difficult task to master for children. You'll notice that my daughter Zoe (3) "rolled" some of her legs instead of using a back-and-forth motion. It's okay. Encourage back and forth (zig-zag), but allow your children to do her best as she learns this new skill. We stapled our legs on, but you could glue yours. We hole punched the top, tied a string, and hung these from our classroom ceiling.
The next craft was a little bit more messy! We used drip glue (Elmer's). We opened the book to the final pages where the spider's web was completed. The kids tried to mimic what they saw the spider do to make her web. I gave each child one long piece of yarn to work with. My daughter Ellie (5) was able to copy the outer ring and the final spiral motion in the middle. Some of the younger children in my class simple placed their string all over the page, creating their own web!
If you haven't read the book, go grab it at the library! Follow it up with these super simple and fun crafts that will challenge and develop your child's fine motor skills!
Looking for more book themed activities? Check out my worm week activities, based around the book, The Diary of a Worm!