• 61 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Spider Writing Prompts

Friendly spiders, the web they build, the real animal and one gentle Halloween night.

Spider Writing Prompts

Show all 61
  1. Describe a spider web on a foggy morning.Angle: the drops, the lines between them, and what the web is tied to.
  2. Tell the story of the spider who lives in the costume box and wakes each October.Angle: what does she find in the box this year, and which costume does she miss?
  3. Tell what happens when a spider tries to be scary on Halloween and nobody is scared.Problem: it is too small to be seen. Ends on: a child says hello, which is better.

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All 61 prompts

A friendly spider 15

  • A spider and an ant become friends. Write about the day they met. Angle: one has eight legs and one has six. What can each do that the other cannot?
  • Describe a room from a spider's spot on the ceiling. First line: From up here, everyone is mostly hair.
  • Describe a spider so that it sounds friendly. Angle: choose gentle words for the legs, the eyes and the way it moves.
  • Give your opinion: are spiders good neighbors? Angle: think of what a spider does in a garden and what it asks for in return.
  • If I were a spider for a day, this is where I would build my home. Angle: high or low, indoors or out. Give two reasons for the spot.
  • Tell the story of a spider who spots a lost library book behind the couch. Problem: how does a spider point? Ends on: a thread that leads straight to it.
  • Tell what happens when a small spider wants to say hello but everyone looks away. Problem: hello is hard without a voice. Ends on: a wave with one leg, and a wave back.
  • Tell what happens when a spider is invited to a birthday party. Problem: what does a spider bring? Ends on: the streamers are hers.
  • Write a letter from a spider to the family whose house it shares. First line: Dear people downstairs, I am the one behind the bookshelf. I mean well.
  • Write a poem of eight lines, one for each of a spider's legs. Angle: give each leg a job: one waves, one taps, one holds the thread.
  • Write a story about a spider who lives in the corner of a classroom and listens to every lesson. Angle: what has she learned, and which subject is her favorite?
  • Write a thank-you note from a gardener to the spider among the beans. First line: Thank you for the summer. The beans have never looked better.
  • Write about a spider who does not like the dark corner everyone thinks spiders love. Problem: that is where she is expected to live. Ends on: a spot by the lamp.
  • Write the diary of a spider who moves to a new garden. First line: Day one. Too many bees. Good fence, though.
  • Write the story of the spider who lives in a mailbox and reads every postcard. Angle: one day a postcard is for her. Who would write to a spider?

The web 15

  • Compare a spider web to something people make. Angle: a net, a bicycle wheel, a lace curtain. Say how they are alike and one way they differ.
  • Describe a spider web on a foggy morning. Angle: the drops, the lines between them, and what the web is tied to.
  • Describe one spider web in each of the four seasons. Angle: dew, dust, a caught leaf, frost. One sentence a season.
  • Describe what it is like to walk on a web, as the spider. Angle: touch: which threads hold still, which ones bounce, how news travels along them.
  • Explain how to look closely at a spider web without breaking it. Angle: where to stand, where the light should come from, what to keep your hands off.
  • Explain what a spider does with a web that is worn out. Fact: a garden spider rolls the old threads up in a ball and eats it, to use the silk again.
  • Tell the story of two spiders who build side by side and compare webs. Angle: one is neat and one is quick. Each secretly likes the other's better.
  • Write a for-sale ad for a spider web. First line: Round, roomy, rebuilt often. Morning dew included.
  • Write a poem shaped like a spider web: start in the middle and work outward. Angle: one word in the center, then lines that get longer as they go around.
  • Write a story in which a spider spins a web as a present. Angle: who is it for, and how do they find out it was meant for them?
  • Write about a spider web that catches something that is not a bug. Angle: a leaf, a feather, a note someone dropped. What does the spider do with it?
  • Write about a spider who cannot decide where to hang her web. Angle: she tries three places. Say what is wrong with the first two.
  • Write about the first web a young spider ever spins. Problem: it comes out lopsided. Ends on: it works anyway.
  • Write the steps a spider follows to build a round web, as a how-to. Fact: an orb web starts with threads like the spokes of a wheel; the sticky spiral goes on after.
  • Write what a spider web would say if it could talk. First line: I am not finished. I am never finished. That is the job.

Real spiders 16

  • Answer in a paragraph: how long does a spider live? Fact: most spiders live just a year or two.
  • Answer in a paragraph: where in the world do spiders live? Fact: spiders live on every continent except Antarctica.
  • Describe how a spider grows. Fact: a spider's skin cannot stretch, so it sheds the old skin in order to grow.
  • Describe where an orb-web spider waits. Fact: a garden spider waits head down in the middle of its web, or hides nearby holding a signal thread.
  • Explain how a spider gets its first thread across a gap. Fact: a garden spider lets a line of silk drift across on the breeze, then makes that line stronger.
  • Explain how a spider on its web knows that something has landed. Fact: most spiders find their food mainly by feeling vibrations.
  • Explain why a spider is not an insect. Fact: a spider has eight legs, two body parts and no antennae.
  • Report on a spider's eyes. Fact: most spiders have eight eyes, set in four pairs.
  • Report on how long it takes a spider to build a web. Fact: a garden spider's new orb web is about two hours' work.
  • Report on the different kinds of spider web. Fact: British spider webs are sorted into seven kinds: funnel, lace, orb, purse, radial, sheet and tangle.
  • Write a report on spider silk: where it comes from and what it is used for. Fact: silk comes out of spinnerets on the spider's abdomen, the back part of its body.
  • Write about a spider that lives under water. Fact: the water spider builds a web under water and fills it with air, like a diving bell.
  • Write about a spider with very sharp eyesight. Fact: some jumping spiders see more sharply than dragonflies, the best-sighted insects.
  • Write about a spider's eggs and the young that hatch from them. Fact: a female wraps her eggs in a case of silk; the young come out shaped like small adults.
  • Write about the best time of year to go looking for spider webs. Fact: fall is best: morning dew and mist show up webs that were almost invisible.
  • Write about the spiders that catch food with no web. Fact: they still use silk, for one thing as a safety rope.

A spider at Halloween 15

  • Compare a spider in a Halloween story with a spider in a garden. Angle: write three lines for each, then say which one is closer to the truth.
  • Describe a fake Halloween cobweb to a spider who has never seen one. First line: "It is like yours," I told her, "but it comes in a bag."
  • Describe Halloween night from a spider's web above the front door. Angle: the costumes passing under, the doorbell, the candy bowl going down.
  • Give your opinion: should spiders be a Halloween symbol at all? Angle: argue as a spider, or as someone who likes the decorations. Pick one.
  • Tell the story of a real spider who moves in among the plastic ones on a Halloween porch. Problem: the plastic ones never answer. Ends on: a child spots the one that moved.
  • Tell the story of a spider and a jack-o'-lantern who share a doorstep on Halloween. Angle: one glows and one spins. Write what they say after the last visitor has gone.
  • Tell the story of the spider who lives in the costume box and wakes each October. Angle: what does she find in the box this year, and which costume does she miss?
  • Tell what happens when a spider rides home in a trick-or-treat bag by mistake. Problem: a strange house and a lot of candy. Ends on: a new corner, or a ride back.
  • Tell what happens when a spider tries to be scary on Halloween and nobody is scared. Problem: it is too small to be seen. Ends on: a child says hello, which is better.
  • Write a spooky but friendly poem about a spider on the last night of October. Angle: use one sound word in every line: tap, hush, creak, rustle.
  • Write about a spider choosing a Halloween costume. Angle: it wants to go as something with fewer legs. Who helps tuck the others in?
  • Write about a spider who wins the Halloween costume contest without wearing a costume. Problem: the judges think the eight legs are very well made.
  • Write the invitation to a Halloween party given by a spider. First line: You are invited to the corner of the shed, at dusk. Bring your own chair.
  • Write the steps for making a paper spider and its web for a Halloween window. Angle: say what to cut out first and where the thread goes last.
  • Write the story of a spider who is tired of being a Halloween decoration. First line: Every October they hang up pictures of me, and nobody asks first.

How it works

No spider in these spider writing prompts is there to frighten anyone. They write to the family downstairs, read the mail and wonder why they are on every porch in October.

Read the full guide

A writing prompt with spiders that are real

Sixteen prompts are on the real animal, each with a fact under it from Wikipedia or from the Natural History Museum in London: silk comes out of spinnerets, most spiders have eight eyes, they live on every continent except Antarctica. The writer explains it, reports on it or describes it.

The web

Fifteen prompts are about the web alone. Describe one on a foggy morning, compare it to something people make, or write what it would say if it could talk.

  • Write the spider small. A doormat is a field and a teacup is a lake.
  • A Halloween prompt stays friendly when the spider wants company, not a scare.

Questions and answers

What is a good writing prompt with spiders that is not scary?

One that gives the spider a polite problem. Write a letter from a spider to the family whose house it shares. Tell what happens when a spider is invited to a birthday party.

Is a spider an insect?

No. A spider is an arachnid, with eight legs, two body parts and no antennae. An insect such as an ant has six legs and three body parts.

How does a spider make its web?

A garden spider lets a first line of silk drift across a gap on the breeze and strengthens it. It adds threads like the spokes of a wheel, then lays the sticky spiral. About two hours for a new web.

Are these spider writing prompts for Halloween?

Fifteen are, and they stay gentle: a real spider among the plastic ones on a porch, a spider choosing a costume, an invitation to a party in the corner of the shed. The rest fit any month.

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