Walter’s Wonderful Web: A First Book About Shapes by Tim Hopgood
One of my favorite things about having a baby is watching them learn new skills. It takes lots of practice to achieve mastery, and as a mom, my heart always swells with pride when they accomplish their goal.
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When my daughter was around 9 months, she loved playing with these foam blocks. She spent hours upon hours stacking and knocking over her little towers until she could build them taller and taller. By the time she was a year, she had this skill down and was building towers with whatever she could get her hands on.
Walter’s Wonderful Web is the tale of a spider who knows the challenge of practice makes perfect. When he can’t make a web that will stay, what’s a little spider to do? Try, try again of course!
This delightful tale is a fun way to introduce basic shapes to your kiddo as Walter practices making the perfect web. His determination pays off and he is able to create a beautiful and sturdy web.
Managing frustrations while learning new skills can be a challenge. What I love most about this book is that it can be applied to children of all ages through introducing shapes (toddler – preschool) and teaching the importance of practice when building a new skill (preschool and up).
We absolutely love Walter’s Wonderful Web! The quirky illustrations bring this story to life and provide a great opportunity to teach shapes and skill-building.
Now it’s time to build your own webs! Read on for a fun activity that will help your child learn shapes, colors, and develop their fine motor skills.
Activity – Learn shapes with yarn webs!
This is a super simple craft that you can do with only a few materials! This activity can easily be tweaked depending on the age of your child so they can participate as much or as little as you want.
**As a bonus, I recommend using construction paper that matches the shapes shown in the book so you can make this both a shape and color recognition activity.
Yarn Shape Webs
Supplies
- Construction paper – green, yellow, blue, red, and orange. **You can use any colors you have on hand unless doing the color recognition activity.
- Craft glue
- Marker or other writing utensil – I used a permanent marker so the lines were bold and easy for my daughter to follow.
- Scissors
- Yarn
Open your book to the first shape page. Draw the shape onto the construction paper. Repeat for each shape in the book. I kept the book open to the page we were following so my daughter could make the connection between our activity and the shape in the book.
Apply glue to the lines. I recommend using Elmer’s or another wet glue rather than a glue stick so the yarn will stay. I do suggest avoiding hot glue due to the danger of burns and it may melt the paper.
Apply the yarn! You can do this one of two ways, depending on the age of your kiddo.
- Measure yarn and cut before applying the glue.
- Stick the yarn down and then cut.
We tested both methods. For my 4-year-old, it worked better to add the glue first and then cut the yarn after it was already stuck down. That way she could do it herself and the yarn stayed in place rather than sliding around the paper. The ability for her to do most of this activity herself was important to me since we were focusing on skill-building.
Repeat until your entire shape is complete!
I wrote the shape and color since we are working on early reading skills. If your child can write, have them add the shape and color themselves!
Continue doing this until you have completed all the shapes in the book.
Summary
Walter’s Wonderful Web weaves a tale of persistence and patience through adorable illustrations and this simple, skill-packed activity is a great way to reinforce those concepts with your child.
We loved this activity for its simplicity and versatility. My daughter knows her colors and shapes already, but we used that foundation as a way to introduce other skills, such as reading, writing, cutting, and gluing.
Once completed, you can save your sheets for practicing colors and numbers. You can even use a hole punch and more yarn to create your own yarn web book!
I would love to know if you did this activity and if/how you modified it based on your child’s age! Feel free to share in the comments below or in the Book Mama Life Facebook group.
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