"The great danger that besets the teacher just beginning nature study is too much teaching, and too many subjects. In my own work I would rather a child spent one term finding out how one spider builds its orb web than that he should study a dozen different species of spiders."
Suggestions for Nature Study, Anna Botsford Comstock, 1904.
OHC More Nature Study
#4 Fall Webs- Cobwebs, Funnel Webs, Orb Webs, and Filmy Domes
Inside Preparation Work:
- Read pages 436-444 in the Handbook of Nature Study. This will be Lessons 110-113 on cobwebs, funnel webs, orb webs, and filmy domes.
- View images of different types of webs: Web Types (scroll down for images)
- Watch a spider spin a web on YouTube: Spider Building a Web
- Use your Outdoor Hour time to go on a web hunt. Look for webs stretched between limbs of bushes, between fence posts, or in corners of windows. If you find a web, sit quietly and observe the location, the size, the shape, and any spiders you can see. Use lots of descriptive words and if you brought along your nature journal, sketch the web for your page.
- Use some of the suggestions from the lessons in the Handbook of Nature Study to glean further knowledge about your spider web and the spider. Try to determine what kind of web you found.
- Take a photo of your web if you wish to include it in your nature journal.
- Spend a few minutes after your outdoor time to review your experience. Help your child remember some of the descriptive words they used when they observed their web. Use a few well chosen questions to bring out their experience.
- Give the opportunity for a nature journal entry, a notebook page, or to look up information in a field guide or reference book. If your child was more interested in the spider, try to identify it and make a record of that in their nature journal.
- Advanced Follow-Up: Write a paragraph telling how the threads of the spider web are arranged, a second paragraph describing the threads, and a third paragraph about the spider that made the web. You can use the accompanying notebook page provided in this ebook (ebook users only).
More images of spider webs on National Geographic Kids
Beautiful Spider Webs on Squidoo—preview for age appropriateness
