Spiders

This year, the kindergarten team decided to use Halloween week as an opportunity to delve into a science unit all about spiders. Students were able to engage with this unit as readers, writers, mathematicians, artists, scientists, and deep thinkers.

We kicked off our unit by answering the question "are you afraid of spiders?" Surprisingly, most students said no! We analyzed our data and tied it into our math learning of using tally marks and comparing quantities.

We also read a short passage about spiders each day and did several "close reading" activities. We examined important vocabulary terms from the passage, labeled the parts of a spider, engaged in a small group activity where we designed the perfect spider web, and, finally, wrote and illustrated a spider fact.

We did several spider art projects, including designing our own glittery spider webs and making spooky spider hats!

We read the book Aaaarrgghh! Spider by Lydia Monks during our spider week. This cute story is all about a little spider who wants to be somebody's pet. We decided whether we thought a spider would make a good pet and then did some opinion writing about this topic.

 

Spider poems we read throughout the week.

Eli and his family were able to catch two cool looking spiders to bring in for observation at our science table. This was so exciting for the students!
 

At the end of our spider week, one student declared, "I used to think spiders were scary, but now I think they are really interesting!" I couldn't agree more!