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.

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