10th October Jumping Spider Day

International Jumping Spider Day celebrates a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae, the largest family of spiders. They’re amazing hunters, stalking their insect prey like a cat stalks a bird. They can calculate distances eerily well, and leap flawlessly from one perch to the next. Jumping spiders are the most numerous group of spiders on the planet, with a couple hundred different species. Salticids are known for their flashy colors, courtship rituals, and expressive, forward-facing eyes.

We have jumping spiders in Australia.

Key characteristics:

• Appearance: 

  Small in size, with large, expressive eyes and excellent vision. 
• Habitat: 

  Found in gardens, wet forests, urban areas, and on vegetation across Australia. 
• Behaviour: 

  Active during the day, they stalk prey, use their strong legs to leap, and do not build webs to catch food. 
• Mating: 

  Males often perform elaborate, colourful mating dances to attract females, as seen in the famous peacock spiders.

  Danger to humans: 

  Jumping spiders are non-aggressive, and any bites are minor, with symptoms limited to the bite site. 

  
  

  Jumper: A Day in the Life of a Backyard Jumping Spider by Jessica Lanan is a beautiful nonfiction book that 

  explores the tiny, secret world of backyard jumping spiders, but also includes robust back matter sure to delight young readers and educators alike. It has won several awards for children's publishing.

  
  

  If you are looking for less or simpler text and photographs, look for these:

  
  

  
  

  

  
  
  
  

Book Week Early Childhood Shortlist: Spiro by Anna McGregor

This delightful picture book explores themes of tenacity, ingenuity and adaptation as Spiro builds and rebuilds his web in the hungry pursuit of food. (Reading Time)

I was pleased to see a fun book about a spider on the shortlist. It reminded me of the Book Week year where we had rotating tabloid book activities. Each teacher took a favourite Australian picture book, planned a simple short activity to go with it, read it to groups of ten or twelve children. The principal chose Aranea  by Jenny Wagner. After the reading the students used coloured twine to make the stair handrails into webs. It looked amazing. The children had so much fun! 

Spiro’s formula for spidery success:

11% hunger to succeed (or actual hunger)

34% trying again and again … and again!

53% giving it another shot

And 2% spider silk.

A hilarious tale of one spider’s determined search for a decent meal.

What is a decent meal for a spider? How do spiders catch their food? Some students may be curious to find out, so find some nonfiction books that might help them discover the answer.

This book is humorous and not designed to frighten children or put them off spiders, so find some other 'fun' spider books. Other books with a light tone are:

What can we learn from spiders? More ideas for your display?

Drawing or painting Spiro?

These books are expensive here, but you can access them on Youtube.

• I Worked Hard on That! by Robyn Wall

• Jumper  by Jessica Lanan

So They Build - Spiders

Spiders are the most amazing of the animal builders, I think. How do they make such delicate webs over such large spaces, time and time again. There is nothing more beautiful than walking into a garden first thing in the morning and spying a dew-laden spiderweb. And they do feel like silk! How do they do it? I need to read more about spiders, so while putting together a display I think I should dip into a few of the books.

I am going to start with this book because it is one of those nonfiction books that you can dip into. It has amazing double page spreads like this one.

• Up Close Spiders  by Cathy Riley

• Spiders Closeup  by Andrew Kelly

Then this one because it focusses on web building.

• Spinning Spiders  by Melvin Berger

• Jumper  by Jessica Lanan

This is new and award winning.

Next any of these:

 • Spiderwebs  by Nancy Furstinger   

• Spiders Spin Webs by Yvonne Winer

 • Scurry the Truth About Spiders by Annette Whipple

• Spiderwebs & Spider Silk  by Lynnae W. Allred

Now for some stories:

• Seaver the Weaver by Paul Czajak and The Brothers Hilt

• The Weaver  by Qian Shi

• The Very Busy Spider  by Eric Carle

• Aranea  by Jenny Wagner and Ron Brooks

• Sophie's Masterpiece by Eileen Spinelli and  Jane Dyer

• The Spider Weaver  by Margaret Musgrove and Julia Cairns

• Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss

• The Spider and the Fly  by Tony Diverlizzi

• The Spider by Elise Gravel

14th March Save a Spider Day; World Spider Day

Whatever title you give this day it is about valuing spiders for their role in the environment.

"Spiders help reduce insect populations significantly along with species like birds or ants. Without them, the world's natural environment would be severely unbalanced."

Except for a few poisonous spiders out of the more than 40,000 species of spiders around the world, spiders are practically not dangerous to humans.

We need to learn more about spiders so we can admire them rather than trying to eradicate them.

There are a multitude of nonfiction books that can help with this. Here's some the library has:

Spiders by Laura Marsh

I'm Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton

Spiders  by Valerie Bodden

Spiders  by Recca Gilpin

Up Close Spiders by Kathy Riley

But you do need to share some stories as well!

Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss

Aaaarrgghh! Spider!  by Lydia Monk

Frank the Seven-Legged Spider by Michaele Razi

Seaver the Weaver by Paul Czajak and the Brothers Hilts

Gizo-Gizo! by Emily Williamson

Any Anansi story...there are several, but this is an oldie and a goodie.

Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott

There are more books about spiders listed here. If you still need convincing that spiders are wonderful you need to read Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.