Along Came a Spider ... Project Kit

Connect your students with nature and encourage imagination.

It's time for new perspective. Let’s look outside with kids, find the unexpected, engage curiosity and imagination. Let’s provide a window into the wonders of nature. It’s a great antidote for too much screen time. Making connections with nature not only refreshes mind, body, and spirit, but also provides great opportunities for critical and analytical thinking, for problem finding and problem solving, and for knowing in a real way our fellow travelers on planet Earth.  

In this spirit, as spring blooms in your area and spiders and their spiderlings emerge, we offer you a project named, Along Came a Spider. It was first used in the San Diego area, but it’s easily adaptable to your school yard, park, local forest, and classroom. Along Came a Spider is designed for middle school students (grades 5-8), models a quality Deeper Learning inquiry-based experience, and provides engaging project based learning activities. However, the project can be easily adapted for elementary and high school students, especially if they became authors and zoologists teaching younger kids about spiders.

We hope you find Along Came a Spider valuable for engaging your students and moving your practice beyond project based learning lesson plans into deep inquiry. Send stories and photos from your adaptations of this project to info@projectfoundry.com so we can share your experience with other Deeper Learning educators.

Project Plan & Spider Tips and Cautions Flyer

Spider Photo Journal Template & Assessment Rubrics