Spider Facts

As a culminating activity for our spiders unit, we each wrote and illustrated a spider fact. They are compiled here in this photo story. Enjoy!

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!

Pumpkins

Our weeklong investigation of pumpkins was so much fun and resulted in many hands-on learning opportunities. We started our unit with a trip to the Parker Family Pumpkin Patch, where we learned about the pumpkin growing process, visited the fields where the pumpkins grow, and tried some yummy pumpkin foods.

Acting out the pumpkin life cycle.

Exploring various types of pumpkins.

Tasting pumpkin applesauce. Yum!

Enjoying pumpkin dip!

A class full of pumpkins!

Throughout the week, we were able to engage in a variety of activities to further our learning about pumpkins. In addition to reading many pumpkin stories and informational texts, students used the pumpkins that they brought back from the pumpkin patch to be scientists and answer various questions about them. We also observed our class pumpkin and drew representations of the pumpkin for our science notebooks. We then estimated how many seeds were in this pumpkin and then worked very hard to count them all!

Eliza measures how many links around her pumpkin is.

Eli investigates whether his pumpkin floats or sinks.

Rian and Violet investigate their pumpkins.

We read this book before estimating how many seeds were in our class pumpkin.

Our estimates.

Counting pumpkin seeds on tens frames!

Exploring the inside of our class pumpkin at the science table.

We listened to this book at the listening center and then drew and wrote about our favorite part.

Violet practices pointing to the words in her Pumpkin Lifecycle book.

Allyson hunts for letters at this pumpkin-themed station.

Eli plays the Pumpkin Syllables game during literacy centers.

We concluded our unit by sequencing the life cycle of a pumpkin and summarizing all that we learned during the unit. I wonder if anyone will be eating some pumpkin pie in a few short weeks?!