The other day my husband found a black widow in our backyard. He put it in a jar and showed the kids — they thought it was pretty cool. I, however, thought about what would have happened if one of the kids found it or my husband wasn’t looking and the spider leaped in the air and attacked his neck depositing deadly poison into his veins. But none of that happened and in the end the kids had a cool thing to look at. I suggested they take it to school and told them about the time I took a turantula that my dad found to school. The kids nodded and smiled which meant they probably wouldn’t do it.
When we were in Spain at Retiro Park (Madrid’s “central park”) there were some protesters handing out fake dog poop. Yes, they were protesting against dog owners who don’t faithfully bag up their dogs waste and leave it in the beautiful park for all to smell and walk in. Anyway, the protestors were dressed like elves dwarfs and handed my kids the fake poop. Of course my kids got a kick out of that and it was the joke for a few weeks.
The spider died in the jar. No one ever took it to school. My son however, snuck the fake poop into his backpack and took it to school. So there you have it. I suggest taking a rare (sorta) black widow to school for all the kids to see and the teacher to tie into a nature lesson, but my son chooses to take fake plastic dog poop. Great nature lesson that must have been.
a-muse-ing 
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