Make your own Red-back spider puppet

You will need:

• 1 piece of black foam
• 4 black pipe cleaners
• 1 black Pom-pom
• red and gold paint
• string
• tapestry needle
• double-sided tape
• scissors

What to do:

1. Take a piece of black foam and a pair of scissors. Cut the foam to the shape of your spider body. This will be the spiders head, or cephalothorax.
2. Take 4 pipe cleaners. Using a tapestry needle thread each pipe cleaner, one at a time through the hole in your foam - be very careful not to jab yourself! This hole has been pre-made to save time. Once you have finished threading, the pipe cleaners may need some bending so they look more like legs.
3. Cut yourself a very small piece of double-sided tape (around 2cm in length) and press it firmly onto one end of the cephalothorax (foam). Peel away the backing of the tape so that the sticky part stays attached to the foam. You can then attach your pom-pom to this point. Your spider now has an abdomen.
4. Take a needle and thread a piece of string through it. Thread the string up through the middle of the under side of the foam and tie a knot at the bottom or to one of the legs.
5. Finally, use a paint brush and red paint and give your spider a red stripe on the back of its abdomen (pom-pom). Give your spider 8 eyes with gold paint.

Try out your Red-back spider by making it walk on the table.

You may also like to hang your spider from an object at home.