How to Make a Spin Art Spider Craft

Inside: Put your salad spinner to good use while making this fun spider craft. Our energetic children love the action that is involved!

How many times can a teacher use her salad spinner? And I’m not talking for lettuce!

I’m talking at the art table. With paint.

Last week was our spider theme and I put together a fun preschool spider craft I knew they’d love.

Fun because even though it looks like a craft, it’s mostly process art.

And it involves squirting paint.

Fun because you get to push a button or flip a lever (depending on what style salad spinner you have).

And no two look alike!

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know my love for spin art is not new. We’ve made spin art trees, spin art ornaments, spin art hearts, and spin art apples.

Year after year spin art has been a hit with our toddlers and preschoolers because they love the process! Once they learn the steps, they can do it unassisted. Even our toddlers!

How to Make a Spin Art Spider Craft

What we used:

Salad spinner
Black paper cut in circles and strips
White washable tempera paint
Googly eyes
Silver glitter

Getting started:

Cut the black paper into small circles. They will be placed in the bottom of the salad spinner basket.

We poured some of the white paint into a plastic squeeze bottle. If you are having the children squeeze the paint, stand very closely. Pouring is a lot of fun, and they just might empty the entire bottle if you walk away. Even for a minute. (Perhaps this has almost happened to me….)

This is a good amount:

Put the top on the salad spinner and make it spin. Another beauty of this activity is that they keep the spinner moving as long as they desire. For some of our toddlers and preschoolers, that is quite awhile!

You can see a short video of this in action on my Instagram page.

If your salad spinner is clear, invite the children to take a peek at the sides. See the paint starting to hit the walls?

When finished spinning, allow it to stop and remove the lid. There is always that moment of suspense as the lid is slowly being raised. What will the paper now look like?

While the paint was still wet, we sprinkled just a tiny bit of silver glitter on it. But this is optional.