Teaching Heart's Spider Theme / Unit!!!

October is a month full of spooks and it is a great time to study spiders! Here you will find many ideas, printables, crafts, and great books for your spider unit! This page will be updated often during the September & October Months. So crawl back over to see what is new!

UPDATED -September,2011

Facts About Spiders

*Spiders are not insects.
*Spiders' babies come from eggs.
*Most spiders have either six or eight eyes.
*Not all spiders spin webs.
*There are more than 30,000 species of spiders.
*Spiders eat many types of harmful insects, helping to keep your garden free of pests.
*All spiders have fangs, though which venom is ejected. Spider bites can be painful and sometimes fatal.
*Not all spiders spin webs.

Spider Ideas

Make Spider Marshmallows with your class:
For each spider, use one large marshmallow for the body and one small marshmallow for the head (attach with 1/2 a toothpick).  Make eyes from mini M&Ms, legs from pretzel sticks.  Cover with chocolate sauce, if desired.

Positional words
Use an empty spider web and the sentence frame, "The spider is _____ the web."  Use 5 different pages like this. On each, place a spider somewhere on the page, and then fill in the blank accordingly. Examples: inside, above, under, on, and beside

Build Character and Make a Web:
Sit the class in a circle. Hold a ball of white yarn. Hang on to the end and toss the yarn to a child. State something nice about the child.
The child with the yarn, hold onto a section and repeats until everyone has had a turn. When you are done, you will have a
spider web!

Spider Rings
At halloween you find these in bag fulls at craft stores. Use them for counting activities galore!

Write spider facts on a large web. 

Make a class graph, "Do you like spiders?"

Catching Spider Webs Bulletin Board Idea

Spider booklet- We make a spider booklet with spider facts on it.

Create web books by emphasizing sequencing skills.  Cut 12X18 black construction paper into 3X18 strips.  Fold in half and in half again to create four sections on the strip of paper and fold accordian style.  Using white glue...  "build" a web on the four 'pages'.  Make the first the beginning stages and the end a completed web.  When this dries it becomes a tactile story.

A neat idea I have tried with my group is watching a spider weave his web by making a wooden frame and setting the frame in water with the majority of it above water( of course). All you need next is a spider...I seem to have lots here ...I'm sure there's no shortage of them where you are either : )  Anyhow, we place the spider on our square frame and watch him weave wonders.  It amazing the learning that takes place as they watch this little critter each day.The children even found the bugs to feed to it!!!!!

Get 4 strawberry baskets,a spinner, plastic spiders, and a piece of poster board.  Section the board into 4 pieces.  Cut out 4 circles . . . glue 1 into each section of the board, and put the spinner in the middle.  On two of the sections write "in" and glue a plastic spider in the middle of the circle.   On
the other two sections write "out" and glue the spider next to the circle.  KIds spin the spinner --- if it lands on "in", they can put one spider in their basket...if it lands on "out" they must take one out.  Whoever gets 5 spiders in their basket first wins!!

Miss Spider’s Tea Party:  Take some marshmallows (the large jet puffed ones). Insert some chow mein noodles as legs.  Melt some chocolate and drizzleon the marshmallows.  Add 2 M & M’ s for eyes.  Brew some tea and enjoy!

Play the Very Busy Spider Game!!!

Spider Tally Mark Center From Our Fall Halloween Packet - Click to learn more about the packet.

Here is a Spider Web tally mark math center. You can place all the pieces in a zip loc baggie or the students can do the activity at their seat. You could also make this a pocket chart center. There is a center sheet for the students to complete after they finish the center.

These activities are just two of the activities found on the Teaching Heart Fall/Halloween Packet. Click here to learn more about this packet.

Student match the spider to it's web by counting the tally marks on the spider and placing it on given web. Includes a center sheet to complete after the center is done.

Spider Ring Activities...

Next time you see a pack of spider rings, grab them... so much fun is to be had with these little buggers.

Spider's on my Fingers Game

Students roll a die and place the given number of spider rings on their fingers. The first to have spiders on all ten fingers is the winner.

Click here to see more activities with halloween rings and a free printable too!

Spider Poems

"The Silly Willy Spider"
The silly willy spider
Crawled up on _____'s head!
It crawled all around
Then made a nice soft bed.
It wiggled down his/her shoulder
And jumped down to the floor
Then the silly willy spider
Crawled to someone else for more!

"Little Miss Muffet"
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider
And sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away!

The Spider in the Web
(tune: Farmer in the Dell)

The spider in the web, 
The spider in the web
Spin, spin, oh watch him spin,
The spider in the web.

The spider eats a (bug name)
The spider eats a _________.
Spin, spin, oh watch him spin,
The spider in the web.

Tune: I'm a Little Teapot:

I'm a little spider watch me spin
If you'll be my dinner
I'll let you come in
Then I'll spin a web to hold you tight
And gobble you up in ONE BIG BITE!

There's a Spider on the Wall
Tune: Twinkle Little Star

There's a spider on the wall
If he's careful he won't fall
He moves slowly down the wall
I can watch him crawl and crawl
I wonder if he minds my stare
Or does he know and just not care?

Spider, Spider Fingerplay

Spider hurrying,
(Run fingers back and forth.)
Spider scurrying,
See her silken thread.
(Stretch thread between fingers and thumb.)
Spider hurrying,
(Run fingers back and forth.)
Spider scurrying,
See her little web.
(Make spiral with fingers.)

Fun Spider Crafts

Thumbprint Spiders - Use thumb prints dipped in black ink or colored with a black marker.  Add crayon legs and features.

Pom-pom Spiders - Use various colors and sized pom-poms and glue together to make spider body.  Add pipe cleaners for legs and wiggle eyes. 

Great Spider Craft Ideas - Click Here!

Make Chocolate Spiders
You Need
Large block of Milk Cooking Chocolate
2 Tablespoons of Crunchy Peanut Butter
1 Packet of Chang Noodles
Some dessicated coconut

1. Melt the cooking chocolate slowly in a saucepan, stirring as it melts.
2. Mix the peanut butter (you can warm the peanut butter first) with chocolate.
3. Mix the melted chocolate and peanut butter, with coconut, pour over the noodle mixture. Be careful not to break up the noodle sticks.
4. Put them in spoonful sized dollops on greaseproof paper and let them set.

Make a Web - A crispy rice-cereal circle made with melted chocolate and peanut butter if a web pattern is piped on top. Draw the tip of a knife or a wooden skewer, even a toothpick, through concentric circles of melted chocolate, creamy peanut butter or cake-decorating gel to form the web pattern. Alternate directions each time, dragging the point from the center to the outer edge, then from the outer edge toward the center.

Spider Suckers - Wrap black pipe cleaners around the base of the sucker (the bottom of the round part where it attaches to the stick) You want to wrap this so that there are 4 legs on each side. Then glue wiggly eyes on the body of the spider. Bend the legs to hold the sucker up from the table.

Check out this cute Spider Hat from Little Buggie Tutu - she give step by step directions on how to make the hat. SO CUTE!

 

Spider Books to Help Make Your Unit Crawl


The Itsy Bitsy Spider


Watch on DVD

The Eensy-Weensy Spider

Use this Guided Reading Lesson To Match this Book


Click here to learn more about the book at Amazon!

Dream Weaver

Spectacular Spiders

Amazing Spiders (Eyewitness Juniors)

My Favorite Spider Links

Things to print!

Spider Books to Help Make Your Unit Crawl

Mighty Spiders! (Hello Science Reader (Level 2))

Spiders Have Fangs (I Didn't Know That)

Spider Bulletin Board

Get Caught Up in Books Bulletin Board Shared with Teaching Heart:

By: Sky Seery

The students here at McDonald Elem. LOVE this board. Last weekend while shopping I picked up a bag of the spider web stuff, then saw a HUGE stuffed spider. With a bend of his 8 legs, thought of a great bulletin board. I'm sure it's been used before, but I love it anyhow. With some book jackets and EZ letters and bright fabric I've created a Halloween delight.

www.teachingheart.net