Making one large class web requires everyone to work together. It's also a useful way to help children get to know one another. Gather children in a circle. Holding onto one end of a ball of yarn, toss the ball to another child in the circle. Each child must grab onto the yarn before throwing the ball to another child. Ask each one to say her name or something about herself when she catches the yarn. Keep building the web until everyone has a turn or you run out of yarn.
When handed a glue bottle, many preschoolers will squeeze out huge glue puddles. Teach children control by making glitter spider webs on black construction paper. Demonstrate how to create a web shape on the paper with glue, explaining to children that they must squeeze the bottle gently while moving it over the paper. Cover the glue with glitter. When it dries, shake off excess glitter. Help children finish off the pictures by adding fuzzy spiders made of black pompoms and googly eyes. Glue pipe cleaner legs onto the picture and arrange the spider bodies on top.
Demonstrate how spiders use their webs to catch food by creating yarn webs. Give each child three craft sticks to glue into a snowflake shape with six points. Once the glue is dry, help children weave white yarn around the shapes to create webs. Webs should have five or six circles of yarn. Make your own web that has only two or three yarn circles, then demonstrate that the fuller webs are more efficient at catching food. Sprinkle glitter, beads and sequins over all the webs. Children will see that their webs caught much more than yours.
Most preschoolers love eating, but even picky children will be more apt to eat snacks that they've helped create. Dress up snack time by covering graham crackers with chocolate or jelly webs. Use melted chocolate or chocolate sauce, or buy squeezable jelly that has no lumps. Pour the sauce into a plastic bag and cut a tiny bit off of one tip. Give each child a turn to drizzle a spiral of sauce onto his crackers, then drag a plastic knife through the sauce to make it into a web.