One of the favourite centres was the Spider Counting Game.  The materials consisted of an inflatable black spiderwith the body that could be used as a candy dish, small plastic spiders, tweezers, a mat with a spider web picture and a die. The first two items were purchased at my local dollar store.  The tweezers can be made using two popsicle sticks, a small wad of paper and an elastic band.  I have used both homemade and commercially purchased tweezers and mats.

The children roll a die and count out the number of spiders indicated on the die. They are told they must use the tweezers to count out the spiders so that the mother spider does not bite them.  They are to place them on their mat.  To control the length of the game I have had them take 5 rolls each and then they count their total.  Then they use a spinner to determine if the person with the most or the least amount of spiders wins that round.