spider web

My kids love tape, and really, what's not to love? It comes on a roll, you can stick things to one side of it, and that's about all there is to know.  The truth is I'm usually very stingy handing it out, but for this week's acitivity  I had to put that aside.  The idea was to give the kids all the tape they wanted and have them go crazy sticking strips together to create a huge spider web.  At the Home Depot this weekend, I grabbed roll of painter's tape for only $3.48, which is less than you would pay for your daily Triple Baconator at Wendy's.  The plan was coming together.

Side note: Blue painter's tape possesses a rare combination of properties found nowhere else on earth, making it ideal for child care and amusement purposes.  Its like a roll of duct tape married a stack of post-its and they had a blue baby.  Somehow, it manages to adhere strongly to a wide variety of surfaces (including children), yet removes easily without a residue.  You can even untangle it when it gets twisted and sticks to itself, which is great for the little clumsy ones in my family.

To get in the mood, we started out by pretending to be spiders.  Sam provided a detailed tutorial in backwards spider walking (v similar to crab).  We reviewed what spiders do (catch and eat bugs) and what they make (webs).  We made spider teeth with our fingers, and then it was on.  I helped get it all started by sticking some big pieces, but once they got the hang of it they could easily connect pieces together.  Throwing caution to the wind, I kept handing out strip after strip of tape and the web took shape.

Once we had a basic web up, we drew bugs on paper.  We ripped these out and stuck them in the web, along with whatever else it would support.  I had to help the girls ("no, this is the sticky side"), who are still mastering the subtleties of tape.

A highlight came when sam got his sister's ultra-cute garden fairy doll to stick in the web, at which point he descended on it and pretended to eat it like a spider.  I cannot be certain about the existence of fairies, but I do know one thing:  if they are real, and if one got caught by a spider, and if someone happened to get a video of it,  THAT video would go viral, for sure.

In all, we had a ton of fun trapping and devouring bugs in our web.  I had to monitor the web and ensure that it stayed at a height above the twins' heads, allowing them to move around easily without breaking the strands that Sam had placed.  They still managed to take a good chunk of it apart, which kind of made Sam lose his mind.  I kept busy repairing torn pieces in their wake.  Frugal daddies will be happy to hear that I was able to salvage about a half-baconator's worth of tape, rewinding it around the roll for use on another Tuesday.

Fun Rating: 8.5 out of 10.  We had a ton of fun and Sam really got into the whole spider scenario.  I had to help and monitor the girls, but it was worth it.