This week our students are learning S for Spiders. I love Pinterest and blogs simply for the fact I learn new ideas and tricks to teach my students a concept or theme! Deborah's spider webs were the perfect way to have our children make webs, and I found this picture on Pinterest for our very own spiders!
The other fun idea I found was Playdough eyeballs from Teach Preschool. What a genius idea! My students loved the addition to our playdough center. It was a big hit.
Finally, I came up with two new ideas for my own classroom that I would love to share with you!
First, with inspiration from Deborah's mini poster about spiders, I created my own anchor chart. I see them a lot on Pinterest, but designed for upper grades. I wanted to create one that is interactive for my students and at their level. I took Deborah's three concepts about spiders 1) Spiders have 8 legs 2) Spiders eat mostly insects that fly 3) Spiders catch insects in their sticky web and created a chart! Here is a picture:
This is without the parts added during our discussion.
Here it is completed! Students had the opportunity to put 8 legs on the spider, wings (made of parchment paper) on the fly, and add a fly to the sticky web. The web is drawn with a black marker, with a piece of contact paper over it to allow the fly to stick! Students also had the chance to touch the contact paper to feel how sticky the web was.
My second addition to our centers was a spider sorting game. While at Walgreens last week, I found rubber colored spiders. I knew I had to buy them for a sorting game! I created webs of different colors on my computer, printed on cardstock and laminated for durability. I added magnets to the webs and spiders. (Note: Make sure you use super glue or E6000 glue for the magnets on the spiders! Hot glue doesn't work!) I added this game to the magnet board in our classroom. What an easy way to practice color sorting! Find the game here. (Freebie! What joy!)
Here are the spiders I found at Walgreens!
I hope these activities will add to your fall learning experiences.