This is one of our favorite Halloween crafts for kids, and is very quick and simple as well as a good way to practice cutting skills with little kids. Older kids can let their imaginations take over and create some really wacky spiders!

You will need:

Black paper

Scissors

Glue or sticky-tape

Googly eyes (optional) or scraps of paper and pens

Instructions:

Cut a rectangle of paper approximately 3 inches by 3 1/2 inches. Fold the short side down about an inch to make a crease, then open up again.

With the crease horizontal, cut the paper up to the crease to create the spider's 8 legs.

NB: You can show the children how to make the first cut in the middle, dividing the area below the crease into 2 halves. Then show them how to divide each half again to make quarters, then the quarters to make eighths. You may want to draw lines for younger children to practice cutting on.

Now wrap the spider around the child's finger and fasten with sticky-tape or glue. Remove and decorate - either with scraps of paper or with googly eyes. Put back on the finger and bend the legs into shape or curl them around a pencil.

Variations:

Hang the spiders up! Simply cut a length of black yarn (wool) and attach inside the head of the spider with a small piece of sticky-tape.

Make smaller versions of these spiders to decorate the ends of Halloween pencils.

Wrap small spiders around straws to decorate your Halloween table! Make some bigger spiders and scatter them around the table too.

Cut a small slit on either side of the spider's head and insert a name card to turn these spiders into spooky place markers!