Spider Week!

What is it about spiders that kids love SO much?!  When I busted out our graph to start our unit of study on arachnids, the kids went CRAZY.  

We started our week with the question, "Are you afraid of spiders??"  Me.....not so much....unless the are BIG and FURRY......GROSS!!!  They are more creepy than scary...and the kiddos feel the same way.  We read lots of nonfiction and fiction books to learn about spiders.  Did you know that spiders live everywhere BUT Antarctica, have 8 eyes, and can be as big as a plate?

 

All of our math and literacy stations were spider themed and the kids LOVED them. One of our favorite books that we read was The Diary of a Spider.  We continued to work on comparing fiction/nonfiction stories.  In math we worked on addition by playing Spider Drop.  In writing we worked with Thinking Maps.  We gathered facts on our tree map all about what spiders are/can/have and then did a little non fiction writing.  I like to ease the kiddos into the writing the process by providing writing prompts at the beginning so they can be successful with this while learning what I expect to see when they write.  Plus, it helps to organize their thinking.  After students completed their writing, I painted their hands to make handprint spiders.  They turned out SO cute!

We ended our fun week by watching Charolette's Web and making a fun spider snazzy snack.  Can you guess what we made our spider out of?  Ask your child.....I am sure they would love to tell you about it!

Be sure to stop by next week to see all the BAT fun we will have!