Click here to read Not-So-Spooky Spider Handprint Window Cling for Kids on Hands On As We Grow
This not-so-spooky spider handprint is also a window cling for the whole family to make!
It’s officially the best time of the year! I love the last three months of the year if only because they give so many reasons to do holiday-themed activities.
With Halloween coming soon, my preschooler is super engaged with anything related to the creepies and crawlies. So we got the whole family involved in decorating the windows with some not-so-spooky spider handprint window clings!
I’ll be upfront — this activity won’t make it on our list of the 15 Simplest Activities Yet.
Sometimes we need the spur-of-the-moment activities that require no setup, and other times I prefer to have one with multiple steps to keep the kids (and myself!) going.
This spider handprint activity could easily be spaced over several sessions, and that’s exactly what we did.
I enjoyed not having to think of a new activity – just move onto the next step in this one. Plus, my preschooler was so proud when he saw the final result of his efforts.
Want more spooky fun? Try 26 Icky and Gooey Halloween activities for toddlers.
We’ve also been really enjoying listening to our Audible.com audiobooks during activity time, so this was a great excuse to sneak in some Halloween audiobooks! I was surprised to find some of our favorite kid-friendly spooky stories in their extensive collection of audiobooks.
(I’ve included a list of my favorite spooky preschooler favorites below!)
If you’re not familiar with it already, Audible is a seller and producer of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming. They have digital audiobooks, radio, and T.V. programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers. It’s a one-stop shop for all things information and it’s easily accessed on any smart device.
This month, we’ve partnered up with Audible again to get you a 30-day trial with free download so you can check out their Halloween selection for kids, too!
How to Make Spider Handprint Window Clings
Since this activity has a few steps, it’s best to set up your supplies first before you invite the kids in. I used:
- Clear contact paper
- Black non-toxic acrylic paint
- Paintbrush
- Tape or heavy items (optional)
- Scissors (adult and/or child, depending on your child’s skill level)
- Googly eyes (or colored paper scraps and large hole punch to make eyes)
- Black marker
- School glue / PVA glue
First, spread out your contact paper on the table, and tape it down (or weight down the edges) to keep it from curling and moving on you.
The Messy Part: Making the Spider Handprint
Using the black paint, cover only your child’s palm and four fingers with paint. Don’t paint the thumb (unless you want your spider to have 10 legs instead of 8, then go for it!)
I helped my son do a controlled stamp of his hand on the paper, and lifted away. Next, he rotated his hand and did another print overlapping on the palm area, so that the legs were pointing in opposite directions.
It can be a little tricky rotating the hand around, so I would definitely think through your surroundings before you do the first print.
Can your child go to the other side of the table? Or maybe start with fingers pointing left, then pointing right?
Scared of messy play? These tips will help you embrace messy play.
We only painted one child’s hand at a time, stamped it, then washed it. That helped keep the painty fingers from wandering all over the kitchen while I helped each child!
Make mom and dad’s handprint spiders too!
I think my preschooler’s favorite part was reversing roles!
To make our spider handprint family, he got to paint mom and dad’s hands, too!
It was amazing to see how well he had observed his own painted hand, by not painting our thumbs or forearms.
Break time!
This spider family needed to dry, so now was a great time for lunch and naps. I set up a small fan pointing onto the handprints, and they were dry an hour later.
Add some spooky personality to the spiders!
At this point, we hadn’t turned on our audiobooks just yet. The handprint part can get a little chaotic and I really wanted my kids to focus on the sensory process of the sticky paint.
But now our spiders family was ready for some personality!
So we turned on our favorite spooky audiobook, Little Goblins Ten, to listen to while decorating our spiders.
You can keep it very basic — or get really artsy — with your decorations. We just made silly faces, with eyes and various mouth shapes.
These spiders would look so cute with some funky googly eyes! I didn’t have any on hand, so we just used some colored paper scraps and a large hole puncher to make eyes (I drew the pupils with a black marker).
My preschooler went to work cutting some basic circles and rectangles for the mouths, then glued everything into place.
If I’m being honest, at this point we had some meltdowns. What activity time is complete with one of those?!
So I tucked away the rest of the activity for the next day. This gave me a good chance to cut out the spiders (if you have older kids, they can get some cutting practice here, too!)
Oh – and can I show you something cool? I’m sure someone somewhere has done this before, but it’s new to me…
You gotta make a spider web on the window!
When I told my son we would be sticking our spiders on the window, he asked me where’s the spider web? Good question.
I didn’t have any fake webbing and didn’t want to tape stretched cotton balls all over a window at toddler level.
So, I used plain old Elmer’s school glue in the pointed-tip bottle to draw it on the window! It worked so well, I think I’ll do this every year. It took all of 3 minutes to make, and peels or washes off very easily.
And here’s a tip: if you are doing it on a sliding glass door like mine, paint the web on the outside of the door. This keeps little hands away while it dries, and it’s easy to hose off later.
Hang your spider handprint family!
With fresh energy the next day, we finally gave our spiders a home! I let my preschooler peel the backing off of the contact paper, which proved to be a great exercise in building fine motor skills.
Even little brother loved smooshing them onto the window! (Then picking off the smiles…)
I think they turned out so adorable!
I especially love how some of the handprints are more transparent than others, so you can really see the tiny fingerprints.
We stuck these on a window that we walk by all day, so the boys have had fun trying to match their handprints to the spiders.
When Halloween is over, I’m going to try to save these on some wax paper to hang up next year, too.
It might also be fun to add some new ones to the spider family as the kids’ hands grow!
Pick an audiobook to set the mood.
After we finished hanging the spiders, my oldest asked for an audiobook again. Nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy! This time we listened to one that we had a paperback copy of, so we could follow along: How to Catch a Monster.
If you want to add an extra layer of fun to your spider handprint activity, make sure you check out this 30-day trial with free download from Audible.
Here are our favorite audiobooks for Halloween (pre-screened for little ears):
- Little Goblins Ten, by Pamela Jane, Jane Manning
- Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins, by James Dean
- How to Catch a Monster, by Adam Wallace
- Happy Halloween, Mittens, by Chip Schaefer
- Arthur’s Halloween: A Story from Arthur’s Audio Favorites, Volume 2, by Marc Brown
- 100+ Halloween Jokes: Funny Jokes for Kids, Volume 1, by Johnny B. Laughing
- Fancy Nancy: Halloween… or Bust!, by Jane O’ Connor
- Inky Winky Spider series (not specifically Halloween, but very cute for a spider theme!)
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Audible. The opinions and text are all mine.
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