Making Charlotte's Webs

Last March and April we first read Charlotte's Web by E.B. White so Hazel would know the story before we went to see a live performance of it. She fell in love with the story and could not get enough. It is still one of her favorite live performances she has seen and that is even better than Rapunzel, Snow White and Cinderella's Wedding. I posted about our first reading of it and learning about friendship in April.

We tried a few other chapter books. We tried a Paddington Bear one since I grew up loving the Paddington series. She got bored. We tried The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe because I saw it suggested as a good chapter book for this age. She got scared. We came back to Charlotte's Web and read it again. I had been wanting to do some spider crafts after reading this book since she was finally not being completely scared of spiders. Whenever she claims to be scared of one I remind her it might be Charlotte. She is getting too smart for my tricks though since the last time she reminded me Charlotte is dead.

For those who do not know the story, Charlotte, a spider, fools the people by writing words into her web. The people think the words are a miracle and all the words are about Wilbur, the pig. The first words she writes is "Some pig." After the excitement of the first writing dies down, she writes "Terrific." Then she wrote "Radiant." At this point the farmer decides to take Wilbur to the County Fair. The animals know if Wilbur wins a ribbon there is no way the farmer will kill him to make bacon. Wilbur begs Charlotte to come with him to the fair, but Charlotte is nearing the end of her life and must make her egg sac. She however realizes that Wilbur will need her to be there and to write something in her web there, so she goes and gets the rat to go with her so she will have someone to run errands (like finding words). Her final word in her web is "Humble."  Wilbur does not win the ribbon for best pig, but he wins something better. Charlotte knows her trick has worked and Wilbur will not be killed for food. She created her egg sac at the fair and Wilbur promises to take it with him and to watch over her babies. 

Now our craft was to make Charlotte's webs. Awhile ago I had seen some spider web ideas using the wooden frames of embroidery hoops. (I'm sorry to say I cannot find where I saw it though--if it was on your blog, please let me know so I can add a link.) Anyway, I bought some and used one half of one for another project so we had three. Instead of using yarn, I used some of the fake spider web I got from Shindigz Party Supplies when I did my product review. Hazel and I wrapped the fake spider web spreading it as much as we could without ripping it around the frame. Then I took Hazel's glitter glue and wrote the words and left them to dry for a few days. I also added a few fake spiders on them for some of the pictures. Things I discovered--it is not easy to write with glitter glue. But we like how they came out. I also liked the white glitter glue better than the silver. I was trying the light colors so it would sparkle without standing out as totally different. As you can tell in "Some pig" I was running out of the white so we had to switch to silver for "Humble."


Now we are reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Another series I grew up on both in the books and television shows. And of course it was my favorite since the youngest of three girls was named Carrie just like me. Hazel picked up on that right away as well. She has decided she likes this book even more than Charlotte's Web, but that is a different post all together. What chapter books are you enjoying with your child(ren)?