How these huge black and yellow spiders in your garden can teach kids about nature

Moms everywhere all seem to be cut from the same cloth. They all (each and every one) are of a wont to say:

“Don’t play with your food!”

Well, let me clue you in on a little secret: It’s OK to play with “their” food.

Black and yellow spiders found in gardens and on the eves of houses are busy catching pesky bugs in their webs.

Of what I speak is the grasshopper diet of those huge black and yellow garden spiders. Children can be infused with a healthy dose of nature appreciation if you tutor them in how to catch insects and then gently toss them into the web of these eight-legged predators.

Children will be happily enthralled with how this spider will rush out and wrap its prey in a silken cocoon. Quality time outdoors can also be spent watching the tiny male spiders as they court the female spiders by softly plucking the strands of their betrothed’s web.

Nature study can be a home-based venture. I encourage you to give it a go.

Neil Garrison was the longtime naturalist at a central Oklahoma nature center. His email is atlatlgarrison@hotmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Black and yellow spiders helpful in your garden, offer view of nature