October 2025

Do Spiders Wear Costumes?

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Academic Standards

Reading Objective:

Students will identify ways that four spiders imitate something else to trick other animals into either becoming lunch, or not making them into lunch.

Next Generation Science Standards:

K-LS1-1: What animals need to survive

1-LS1-1: How animals meet their needs so they can survive and grow

Vocabulary:

nectar, mimicry

Use your Science Spin to find the best answer to each question.

1. How does the ladybug mimic spider stay safe?

Birds don’t eat it, because ladybugs taste yucky.

2. What does the ant-mimic jumping spider eat?

ants

3.  Why does the crab spider look like a flower?

to catch a bee to eat

4.  How many legs goes a spider have? Draw one!

© Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.

  • Spiders aren’t the only animals that use mimicry. The mimic octopus pretends to be a jellyfish, a sea snake, or a flounder. It can change its shape, color, or the way it moves to scare off danger.
  • The decorator crab makes its own costume. It covers its body with seaweed and sea sponges to hide when danger comes near.

Materials: Pencils, markers, copies of the skill sheet

Overview: Kids use their imaginations and what they have just learned to create a disguise or “costume” that will help a spider get food, hide from predators, or both!

Directions:

  1. Before you pass out the skill sheets, remind students they read about spiders that pretend to be something else. The spiders do this to get food or hide from animals that want to eat them.
  2. Tell students they will create a disguise for a spider to help it hide from danger or trick insects so they’ll come close and get eaten.
  3. Brainstorm as a group to get creative juices flowing. What should a spider look like or act like to make a tasty insect come near? Or how could a spider disguise itself as something gross or hard to see so that birds don’t eat it?
  4. Pass out the skill sheets and send kids to their workstations to create spider costumes. The spiders are counting on them!
  5. Kids can draw and label their designs. If there’s time, they can share them with the class.