A Fun (and Educational) Spider Cookie Recipe

Children's Delight Quilt Block (click for pattern link)

Delight your favorite child by making these fun (and educational) Spider Cookies with them!

Spider Cookies

For each spider, you will need:

A napkin

2 chocolate sandwich cookies (plus a few extras to allow for breakage)

4 pieces of thin red licorice

2 Chinese noodles

8 round cake decoration candies

6 shelled sunflower seeds

1.  Place the two cookies side by side on your napkin.  A spider has 2 body parts.  The front part is called the cephalothorax.  The back is called the abdomen.  The cephalothorax is like the head and chest of the spider.  It contains its brain and stomach.

2.  Carefully open the cephalothorax and lay each piece of licorice across the middle of the cookie.  Put the top back on the cookie.  A spider’s legs grow out from the front part of its body.  (How many legs does a spider have?)  Your spider should have 4 licorice legs on each side.  Spider legs are covered with tiny hairs.  It can smell and feel vibrations with these hairs.  Spiders also have two tiny claws on the end of each leg which help it cling to its web.  If a leg is lost, a spider can grow a new one!

3.  Many spiders have 8 eyes.  Lay your tiny candies on the cephalothorax in two rows with 4 in each row.  Even with all those eyes, most spiders do not have good eyesight.  How can a spider know when an insect is caught in its web?  (It feels the vibrations with its legs.)

 

4.  In the front of a spider’s body are its jaws and fangs.  Stick 2 noodles into the filling of the cookie so they stick out under its eyes.  Its jaws are very strong, and its fangs are sharp and poisonous.  When a spider catches an insect, it uses its fangs in two ways.  First, it injects its prey with poison to paralyze it.  Then, because spiders can only digest liquids, it injects the insect with digestive fluids that turn its insides into bug soup.  The spider then sucks up the meal.  It leaves the crunchy outside of the insect for another animal to enjoy.

 

5.  Open your spider’s abdomen.  This part contains the heart and lungs.  In the back of the abdomen are 6 tiny spinnerets – tubes that release thin threads of silk to make a web or an egg sack.  Place 6 sunflower seeds inside the back part of the spider’s body to remind you of the spinnerets.  Put the top back on the cookie.

 

6.  Enjoy your delicious spider!

You might also enjoy my previous blog post here.