Fun Kids Activities

Help your children to learn to read, grow, and succeed in life

Spid the Spider’s fun children’s activities and materials help them learn to read, grow and succeed in life. They’ll also help you entertain and bond with your child or children.

To find activities and materials search by month of the year, by book, or by typing a keyword, theme or topic into the search tool. Every Spid the Spider book has a specific teaching theme or themes that link to the KS1 curriculum. Scroll down this page to browse our calendar of fun children’s activities and click on specific Spid the Spider books to reveal the teaching themes. All materials are free-to-use and download. We add to our resources every month, and our growing range includes:

• discussion guidelines and prompts to run home or classroom discussions.
• fun activities to help children learn how to read and write, think, solve problems, create and also think positively.
• posters to put on your home and classroom walls and act as a daily reminder or motivator
• latest research on reading and what you can do to help your child learn to read
• simple reader surveys to assess your child’s attitude to learning i.e., the degree to which they have a ‘fixed or ‘growth mindset’. These will also help you benchmark, monitor and manage progress over time.

Why fun children’s activities?

All of our activities are designed to be fun because research tells us that this is the main motivator for children. If children enjoy doing an activity then this will inspire them to commit to, and do more of it :-).

Learning to read is a gateway skill

Spid the Spider’s adventures are designed for parents and teachers to read aloud to, and with their children. With lots of speech, sounds, and humour, the stories engage, and inspire. By engaging with the books, children will learn to read. And by engaging with Spid, and appreciating him as a role model, children will also learn the benefits of determination, and how to pick themselves up if they make mistakes, or fail. Thus empowering them with skills to grow, and lead happier and more successful lives.

All children can learn to read and grow

According to US psychologist Professor Carol Dweck, four out of ten children are discouraged by failure, and do not believe they can better themselves. They have a so-called ‘fixed mindset’. Conversely, six out of ten children have a ‘growth mindset’. These children believe they can better themselves. As a result, they reframe challenges as learning opportunities. They also believe that intelligence and creativity, as well as things like love and friendship, improve with practice and time. Those with a ‘growth mindset’ are also less discouraged by failure. This allows them to feel happier, more content, and also lead more fulfilled lives.

Yet all children can learn how to adopt a ‘growth mindset. So read Spid’s adventures and use our parent and teacher resources to help your children learn to read, and realise and apply more effort to realise their dreams.

Professor Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: Changing the Way You Think To Fulfil Your Potential (updated 2017) explains more about the concepts behind the terms ‘growth mindset’ and ‘fixed mindset’ and their applications to parenting, relationships and more. The benefits of a growth mindset have also been more widely documented. For example by, Yeager, D.S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G.M. et al. A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature 573, 364–369.

We also welcome your ideas to add to our resources.