Spiders!

This past week, we dove into all things spiders. While I don't care for the real creepy crawlies, this is one of my favorite themes, and the kids always love it! Warning: Long Post Ahead!

We began our week by discussing our spider schema. My kids knew quite a bit about spiders!

Then, we read the book Spiders by Gail Gibbons. It's a great informational text! After reading the book, we added our new knowledge to our spider chart. My kids are doing a great job at recalling details!
The next day, we read the book again and made a can/have graphic organizer. Each student used the organizer to write their own sentence about spiders, and we added them to our paper plate spiders.

Wednesday, we read The Very Busy Spider and practiced sequencing. We made sure we had a friend to go back and check the story to make sure we were sequencing correctly. My kids love our sequencing activities!

We used The Very Busy Spider again on Thursday to work on onomatopoeia. We wrote all the sounds words from the story, then each of my kids created their own Eric Carle inspired spider. I love how different they turned out! You can grab the student sheet here.

In math, we had so much fun using spiders to learn all about the number 8! I've shared before that we teach a number a week until we get to 10, and we really dive into learning all about that number. We count, write, decompose, count on to make it, etc. and our kids have such an awesome number sense! Most of the activities we did are from my friend Deeanna's spider pack.
On Monday, we introduce the number. First, we rainbow the number and glue cheerios on it.

Then, we use our floor ten frame to act out a spider chant Deeanna made up that helps us decompose the number {some are on the "web," and some are off}. After acting it out, each student gets their own ten frame. We glued black beans to be spiders, and the kids added 8 legs.

On Tuesday, we used a web work mat and spiders to practice decomposing 8 again with our song. Since we've been making equations since our second week, my kids are doing amazing now! The majority of the time, we do math on the floor, around the rug using clipboards. I don't know why, but I love doing it this way!

Wednesday, we graphed whether we thought spiders were creepy or cool. I was so surprised that so many thought they were cool! Yuck! After we make a graph, I always have kids tell me what they notice about the data instead of asking them specific questions. It always leads to great conversation! You can grab the graph here.

Thursday, we used our math stick to decompose 8. I've blogged about these before...we use them every week to match our theme and they are great for getting kids to recognize what decomposing is, and to visualize part-part-whole.

We ended our week by working on counting on to find a missing number in an equation. This was a little tricky, but by the end of the lesson, my kids were doing great!

After we did this activity, I let the kids use their spiders to make their own equation that equaled 8.

 We ended our week by making a special spider snack with crackers, Jif Whips, peanut butter chips, and pretzels. So yummy!