Spooky word webs

Steps

1. Draw four circles on the board with a cross through the middle:

2. Ask the students, What’s this? and elicit a spider’s web. Then draw a stick man in the
centre and say: Four giant hungry spiders live on the web and want to eat the man.

3. Think of a word that the students should know, umbrella, for example, and put a dash for
each letter in the word on the board __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ . Say: These
are the letters of the secret word which will free the man.

4. Mime a word for one of the letters, long for L for example, or big for B. When the
students guess the correct letter, write it on the board in the correct space. If they make
an incorrect guess, draw a spider on the outer circle as illustrated and write the incorrect
letter next to it. For every wrong answer another spider appears. The students have a
total of twelve guesses before the spider eats the man.

G
I
Z
P

5. When this demonstration has finished, let the students do the activity in groups or teams.

© www.teachit.co.uk 2012 17007 Page 1 of 1

This resource has been adapted from Tombola (Nelson, 1992) by kind permission of the authors, John Palim, Paul
Power and Phyllis Vannuffel.