Sam and Susie Spider

We have two tiny subjects for our homeschool science investigations this week.  A black-and-yellow garden spider took up residence near the front door, and a couple days later her mate joined her in the bushes by the porch.  The kids have dubbed them Sam and Susie Spider.  Susie is big and colorful; Sam is drab and considerably smaller.

Now, I'm a definite arachnophobe and so is Super-Smart Hunky Husband (SSHH), but we're determined not to pass this on to the kids, and so in the name of science, we've gotten up close and personal with Sam and Susie.  And you know what?  They've got great little spider personalities.  Susie is a fastidious housekeeper, and keeps a neat, organized web.  She carefully repairs it each night and every morning there's a new row of neat Z-s across the middle.  A heavy rain tore down her web this morning, but by lunch she'd built a little temporary one near the same spot, still perfectly made.  We watched her trap and eat a grasshopper and she was very careful to keep the mess to a minimum.  Susie spends her days hanging serenely upside-down from her web by the door, and she doesn't move at all as the kids get close and peer at her.

Sam, on the other hand, has a dive of a bachelor pad.  His web, a few feet from Susie's, is a helter-skelter mess of silken threads.  He sits on top of whichever one is convenient at the moment, and if you come near, he skitters along the thread as fast as his spider legs can carry him, heading for the safety of the bushes.  We've never seen him trap anything and I don't even think he could in his dysfunctional mess of a house.  I suspect Susie makes his meals.  We're anxiously waiting to see if eggs and little spider babies will be forthcoming, as apparently garden spider romance is at its peak in the fall.

The kids are learning to quietly observe and to respect even the littlest of God's creatures.  Sprout is doing internet research on spiders and learning about Sam and Susie.  They're writing fanciful stories about the spiders' past and their little spider friends and families.  And we're all having fun.

This weekend we went to a nature festival at a local park and the good folks there dressed up SweetPea like a monarch butterfly and gave us a lot of information on how to plant a garden that will attract butterflies and beneficial insects.  I think that'll be a springtime science project for us.  In the meantime, we'll continue to keep the can of Raid put away and watch and learn from Sam and Susie.