The Helpful Spider

StoryBuzz began with stories of animals in the Quran, and the Helpful Spider is one of them. On our handwritten list of training modules, it comes first under Quran and Seerah storytelling, ahead of Journey of Patience, Amazing Snake, Ants and Faithful.

A spider-web cape

At one StoryBuzz session, a young participant wore the spider costume: a black cape with a white web running across it and a blue felt spider pinned at the shoulder. She spread her arms wide so the whole web showed. Her parents agreed to let us show her face.

We have run the Helpful Spider at StoryBuzz sessions from 2014 onwards.

A paper spider

The spider turned up at home too. Here a child builds one at the table: a white paper circle for the body, strips of blue paper for the legs and a pair of googly eyes, with scissors and glue close by.

The finished spider, black with blue legs and big googly eyes, sat in a pink flowered gift box with an IqraSaurus "Read to reflect and reform" sticker on the lid.

A spider a child has made with their own hands gives them something to hold while they tell the story again to someone at home. That is Impart, the last step of our 4-I approach.

The spider on a sticker

The spider also has its own label in our Animals and Nature reflection series, the stickers we printed on envelope labels and stuck on children's shirts or sheets in face-to-face sessions. The label pairs a small spider picture with a verse from Surah Al-'Ankabut and a question for the child to think about.

To try something like this at home, you need very little: a circle of card, eight paper strips, two googly eyes and some glue. Make the spider first, then ask your child to tell you the story with it.