Spiders! Ahh!

I am TERRIFIED of all kinds of creepy crawly things! Spiders, insects, lizards, snakes....Yuck!! But, for some reason I LOVE teaching about spiders :)

We have had a blast this week learning about spiders. We only finished our first week, so we still have another week to go and my kids continue to impress me with the knowledge that they have gained!

We started the unit off by 'splashing' some vocab words onto our Word Splash. I use the Word Splash all year and students love helping me 'splash' on new words. I read the words with them, but I don't tell them what the words mean. Their job is to recognize the words as I am reading. After we read a word we will go over the meaning :)

Then the students helped me label the parts of a spider. They also completed their own labeling sheet during morning centers.

As we read more non-fiction spider books, we are continuing to add on to our comparison chart. The children are loving this chart! I have one for the students to complete at centers when we are finished with our whole group chart.

We also made these precious spiders! They look adorable hanging in my room!! The girls have a bow in their hair and the boys have a bow tie :)

All of these activities and MUCH more can be found in my spider unit. I know I am a little delayed on adding this to TPT so it is on SALE :) You can check it out by clicking on the image below.

Thanks!!

October Activities

This is kind of a random post, but I wanted to share some cute activities that we did this month.  Last week we learned all about bats and at our Friday Cafe we made some of our own, YUM!

  

This week we talked more about spiders.  The children did SUCH a good job on their spider books.  I love them!! If you want a copy I am attaching the link.  When you put the book in for copies...copy page 1 and 2 front and back and page 3 and 4 front and back.  It is much easier to prep that way! :)

 My students also worked on some Halloween Riddles.  

 Give all the students a 'flip book'

 Then have them glue on their riddles and try to answer them.

 Have the students open it up and draw a picture of the answer!

Get your own Riddles here

Spiders

Why do I love teaching about spiders...when I really don't like them?! Today I took out all my folders for the next 3 weeks to start prepping everything.  Right now I am sitting on my bed that has literally been taken over...

Is this normal? 

Anyways, I came across some super cute spider, bat, and pumpkin activities that I cannot wait to do!! I love decorating the classroom in October!  Here is one simple activity that is super easy to prep, and the kids love it! Before we complete the sentences, we sit together and brainstorm different adjectives.  Most of the boys always end up writing scary, spooky, or awesome, while the girls always seems to choose beautiful, pretty, and nice.  It is fun to see what they come up with!

We make the spiders with our hands (except our thumb) and the eyes are hole reinforcements. I am attaching the sheet that is seen in this picture in case you want to try it out this year :)  I am also attaching another one I just whipped up really fast (trying to be creative).  I got the cute orange frame from Kirsten Peters McGrath over at ETSY.

Spider Sheet (creative) 

Spider Sheet (seen in picture) 

Enjoy!