Playing with Spiders: Critter of the Month

This essay discusses “Critter of the Month”, a playful learning  practice at Newtowne aimed at fostering solidarity with the rest of the natural world where children select and study an animal that lives in our city. 

“Critter of the Month, who will it be…”

Speaking to a cardinal finger puppet he is holding, three-year-old Sam shares his version of a chant that he has heard at a recent all school gathering. He begins, “Critter of the Month, who will it be? It might be a chickadee. No, that’s silly.” He continues, “Critter of the Month, who will it be? It might be a rabbit. No, it's not a rabbit.” 

And then, “Critter of the Month. Who will it be? It might be...” There is a dramatic pause. He continues, “Blue Jay. No, that’s silly.” 

Sam then refers to photographs of birds that frequent the Purple Fish (his classroom)’s bird feeder. From the list, he picks robin as the next candidate, shaking his head as he explains to the cardinal puppet that robins didn't make the cut. 

Then Sam makes the big reveal. He calls out, “Critter of the Month, who will it be?” Pointing at a photo of a cardinal he calls out “Red Bird!,” letting his puppet friend know its special status.

Playing towards solidarity with the natural world

What is this ‘Critter of the Month’? In this essay, I discuss a playful learning practice at Newtowne School where children select and study an animal that lives in our city. Aimed at building children’s solidarity with the rest of the  natural world (their sense of kinship, belonging to, and wonder), I share detailed documentation of our school-wide inquiry into the first Critter of the Month: spiders. I explain how spiders were selected and how this choice was shared with the school. I discuss my initial ambivalence about studying spiders and detail how the six-week inquiry included, among other entry points,  puppets, a live tarantula, dancing, and a podcast episode. The documentation provides confirming evidence for the hypothesis that playful learning can foster solidarity with nature, as the inquiry into spiders promoted empathy with these sometimes maligned creatures. 

The first Critter of the Month: Spiders 

The selection process

In establishing the Critter of the Month I envisioned each of the four classes at Newtowne to have a turn making a selection. I began with the children from the oldest classroom, the five-year-old Green Dragonflies. The process began with four Dragonflies coming to the studio and looking over the Critter Count, a census of species that had been seen near the school (For more about the count see this post).  I asked each child to nominate an animal that they thought the kids at Newtowne would want to learn more about, providing them clear selection criteria. 

Farryn nominated starlings because she was interested in learning “how their feathers got their colors.” Catherine put forward rabbits because “they can jump really high.” Sadie, who initially had five critters she wanted to nominate, agreed with Catherine because, “I see bunnies in my garden.” Catherine also noted that, “Bunnies aren’t scary and that is good for the little kids.”

Elijah nominated spiders because, “I’m scared of spiders and if I learn more about them maybe I’ll be less scared.”  He confided that he once saw a spider at nap time and hid under his blanket. Luckily, the spider didn’t bother him. He also mentioned that his classmate Faye, “really likes spiders.” Cute? Maybe. Empathetic and self-aware. Absolutely.

When the group returned to their classroom, they shared their ideas at a morning gathering. The children explained their nominations and other Dragonflies voiced opinions. There was a vote. Spiders won.

The big announcement 

The Newtowne faculty decided it would be best to introduce spiders as the Critter of the Month at an all-school gathering where all the children would be together. Newtowne hadn't had such a gathering since before the pandemic, which meant most of the children at the school hadn’t been born at the time that the last all-school gathering at Newtowne School occurred. 

The gathering took place in the Sanctuary of the church where the school is housed, an impressively large space with beautiful stained-glass windows. It began with classes finding their place on the pulpit as the “Newtowne Band” – teachers Danielle Hart and Maggie Oliver – played “This Little Light of Mine'' on their guitar and ukulele respectively. With the children seated in a square, we then sang, “The More We Get Together.” 

It was then time for the big announcement. The Green Dragonflies began to chant:

Critter of the Month. Who will it be? It might be a dinosaur. No! Dinosaurs are extinct. 

Critter of the Month. Who will it be? It might be a giraffe. No! Giraffes don’t live in Cambridge.

Critter of the Month. Who will it be? It might be Enlin. No! Enlin is a puppet. 

They then called out the Critter of the Month, “Spiders!” Faye, Elijah’s classmate who is particularly keen on arachnids, stood and, with great poise, told the rest of the school, “Spiders are good because they eat nasty flies and other pests that are bad for your garden.”

For many reasons, this first all-school gathering was a success. I valued how children could comfortably be themselves among the entire school community. Some sang with gusto while others listened quietly. Purple Fish Ernie, who aspires to be a conductor, stood and swung a finger like a baton to the rhythm of the songs. Green Dragonfly Hugo told his teachers afterwards, “This was the best day of my life.” And the Critter of the Month practice was launched. 

Spiders?

I wasn’t expecting spiders to be selected as the first Critter of the Month. Robins maybe. Squirrels perhaps. But spiders? While not arachnophobic, I have to admit a certain squeamishness about them.  

And I worried about how children in other classrooms would react to spiders. Earlier in the year, I had seen a couple children stomp a spider into oblivion, feeling that it was justified because spiders are “yucky.” Was this the best critter to start with to build children’s solidarity with nature? 

Maybe. Solidarity with the natural world includes an understanding that nature is a system. Around the world, spiders are essential parts of ecosystems, keeping populations of insects in balance. Solidarity with nature can’t just involve cute, cuddly critters. The author Adrian Tchaikovsky has noted, “If you can get someone to empathize with spiders, you can have them empathize with anything.” Why not start with a challenge?

Hug a spider (puppet)

It turned out that getting children to embrace spiders was not a challenge. At least not with spider puppets. I had two spider puppets which I shared among the classes. In the Purple Fish classroom, Sam was enamored to meet one of them. As he interacted with the spider he called out, “Silly spider. Hi spider. Hug. Legs. Hello, hello.” 

This was a common reaction. On the playground, a group of Green Dragonflies and Blue Otters built a slide for the spider to play with. Faye affectionately dubbed one of the puppets “Little Blue” and would ask after it.

As I would find with the other Critters of the Month, puppets provided an engaging way for the children to interact with what many treated as new friends. 

A tarantula

One of the things I enjoy about being an early childhood educator in a school that embraces emergent curriculum– where activities are planned in respond to children's interests--is that you never know what will happen. This uncertainty can provoke anxiety (e.g., “What am I going to do with this group tomorrow?"), but can also lead in unexpected and interesting directions. 

If someone had told me in January, before the Critter of the Month had been selected, that in February I would be hosting a tarantula in the Studio, I would have scoffed. And I would have been wrong. 

Here is the story. The day after the Critter of the Month was selected, I was puzzling over plans for Studio sessions. Spiders are a big topic (for example, there are over 50,000 species worldwide) and I was having trouble finding a focus. 

Then it hit me: there should be an actual spider in the Studio. I called around to pet stores. A local establishment, Big Fish, Little Fish, offered to loan the school a tarantula for a week (hurray for local businesses!). 

The children from all the classes enjoyed observing the Tarantula. And they had lots of questions:

-Where does it come from?

-What does it eat?

-Why isn’t it moving? Is it asleep? 

In truth, the spider was still most of the time. When it did move, the children were delighted. 

During studio sessions, I told about tarantulas' lives in the wild (e.g., making small burrows and coming out to silently stalk their prey). Using this information,  the children enjoyed pretending to be tarantulas. I was pleased; becoming a critter seemed like a good way to foster solidarity among children.

Knowing that they enjoyed naming things (e.g., they christened one of their classroom plants “Big Taco”), I asked some of the Orange Sea Stars to name the tarantula. Rather than fanciful they went with straightforward: Tarantula. The children enjoyed calling the spider by name: “Good morning Tarantula”;  “See you later Tarantula”. Tarantula is a fun word to say. 

Dance!

A key feature of a school-wide inquiry project is that ideas are shared across classrooms. Dancing like a spider provided an opportunity for such collaborative learning.

Yes, spiders dance. During courtship, the male Peacock Spider, a native of Australia, moves his third set of legs around and displays a very colorful fan. According to the BBC’s Best Spider Moments, this dancing is accompanied by tango music.  

Of course, an Australian spider does not dance to Argentine music (or any music at all). But the video of the courtship dance was compelling to the children. And they loved David Attenborough’s baritone voice calling out “dance” at the start of the music. 

After showing the children the video (I did not show them the male being eaten at the of the dance), I offered them a chance to “dance like spiders.” With Astor Piazzolla playing classic tango tunes, the children energetically moved. Some of the children’s movements were pure exuberance: jumping, spinning, and falling down (often while holding hands). Some of the movements were inspired by the Peacock Spider. I videoed such movements so I could share the ideas with other children. 

For example, I captured and shared three-year-old Tom’s idea of moving his arms like the spider’s third legs, 

and Blue Otters representing the spider’s fan.

I showed subsequent groups of children these photos before starting the dance music, and the ideas inspired other children’s notions of how to dance like spiders. 

In this sharing, I was particularly pleased that the ideas of younger children were being appreciated and built upon by older children (a reverse of the usual order). 

Dancing was a regular part of children’s Studio visits during the spider inquiry and often the most joyful.

In anticipation of the second all-school gathering I planned with the Green Dragonflies how they wanted to say goodbye and thank you to spiders as the Critter of the Month. Their suggestion: dancing like a spider. I cued up the tango music, and led a countdown with the Dragonflies calling out, “Dance!” Arms were moved up and down, fans formed, and a good time was had by all. 

Feedback from friends

Sharing the above documentation with colleagues and friends has allowed me to collect feedback about the Critter of the Month practice that will inform its next iteration. The feedback included:

• Avoid a party line about the critters 

On reading the documentation, Matt Karlsen from the Center for Playful Inquiry shared: 

The goal is not a universal attitude about spiders - trying to make sure everyone loves (or hates) spiders. Living in a time of rapid climate change involves living in a world where best paths forward are often not clear, so we each need to decide what values we want to guide us. Coming into contact with other's stories about spiders - scary, fantastic, wonderful, icky, and awesome - is a source of tension which leads to creativity and learning. We need to help children stay engaged, to listen, and to play to create new possibilities - and one way to help them do that is to avoid the norming of a single attitude.

Matt’s colleague Susan MacKay added, “Spiders are like electricity; necessary and dangerous.”

Matt and Susan’s comments got me thinking about the complexity of human’s relationship with the rest of nature. It led me to more often ask children questions with no one right answer (see the essay Engaging children in the complex relationship between them and the rest of nature). And while in this inquiry there was not a party line about spiders, I should be more explicit with the children that different feelings about spiders (and other critters) are welcomed in our investigations. 

• Avoid set time frames for the inquiries

The spider inquiry lasted six weeks, in large part because a new Critter of the Month was set to be announced by the Blue Otter classroom at the second all-school gathering (the gathering time itself was fixed because of the need to book the space far in advance). In reading the documentation, Tiziana Filippini from Reggio Emilia questioned the inquiry’s predetermined time frame. She noted that in Reggio, rather than fixing an inquiry’s length, teachers would determine when a topic was finished based on children’s engagement and other factors. The end would come organically. 

I appreciate Tiziana’s point. At the time, it did feel that many children were not “done” with spiders. As my colleagues and I learn how to work together in facilitating these all-school inquiries, one goal is to be flexible about when to bring an investigation to a close. If children’s interest in a topic remains high, continuing an inquiry is warranted. 

“Would it be OK to stomp on a spider?”

As part of the Green Dragonfly curriculum, teachers Maggie Oliver and Vaidehi Desai helped their class create the Everything Questions podcast. Each episode of the podcast was devoted to the children answering questions on a specific topic submitted by members of the Newtowne community and other friends. Topics included dinosaurs, writing books, and the Critter Count.  

To conclude our spider inquiry, Maggie and Vaidehi generously agreed to help me create an episode about spiders. I asked small groups of Dragonflies questions gathered from the community. Questions included:

• Where do spiders live and do they live underground? 

Answer: Yes, some do live underground. 

• What do spiders look like? 

Answer: They have four legs on each side and, depending on the spider, from zero to eight eyes. 

• Do you have any recommendations for good books about spiders? 

Answer: The Spider Guide Book, Charlotte's Web, and The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

• What is important for people to know about spiders. 

Answer: “They lay eggs”; “They can come in all different kinds and they have all different numbers of eye balls”, and “It's okay to be afraid of spiders, but they're pretty good because they catch flies”. 

• Would it be OK to stomp on a spider?

Answer: No…They are living creatures and when you stomp them it kind of looks like they’re scared.

It is noteworthy that this answer came from one of the children who, as previously mentioned, had gleefully stomped on a spider earlier in the year. It seems that the experience of playing with spiders–the puppets, the Tarantula, the dance and more–had transformed these critters from something “yucky” to living creatures who deserve protection. This is confirmation that play helps build relationships and can foster children’s solidarity with the rest of the natural world.