Spider Activities Literacy and STEAM
My favorite season is here! It’s Fall again! Time for pumpkin spice, sweaters, hot apple cider, scarecrows, and spooky spiders! My students always love learning about fascinating creepy crawlies, and learning about academic skills through fun spider themed games.
Did you know that according to the CORE Teaching Reading Sourcebook, the important skill of phonological awareness is best taught in small group games (Honig, Bill, et al. Arena Press, 2018). That’s why during my Spider Unit, I play a game called “The Sneaky Spider”, where students practice rhyming words, and a game called “Spider Walk”, where they produce beginning sounds. We also play other games in order to develop important math and literacy skills:
Spider Soup: Identifying Alphabet Letters
Home Sweet Web: Matching Alphabet Letters
Web Treasures: Sorting Objects into Categories
Category Sort: Identifying Word Meanings & Nuances
Spin a Web: ABC Order
The Hungry Spiders: Identifying Numbers
Spider Shapes: Identifying Shapes
Spider Frames: Counting and Cardinality
Spider Legs: Decomposing Numbers
Fill The Web: Ten Frame Hunt
In my reading groups, in the fall of the year, most of the children are working on tracking print with their eyes and “pointing to the word my mouth is saying” so I use easy spider themed readers with predictable text, plus a fun Halloween pointer finger, to help them learn this important skill.
At the art center, students learn to construct and deconstruct shapes by making spiders out of shapes. You can listen to my latest podcast to learn more about how I do construct art projects in my classroom.
My students are also engaged during this time writing about spiders at the writing center and investigating spiders at the science center.
I have been asked before how long I usually stick with one theme in my classroom. Usually, it’s about one to two weeks, and the nice thing about teaching thematically is that the set up is usually all at the beginning of the theme and then you are “ready to go” (as I like to say) for the next few weeks of school. It’s also easy to run a thematic unit for a week or a whole month (and I definitely have at least a months worth of activities included below). Usually, you’ll know when your students are ready for a new theme — when they start engaging with the materials you’ve provided less productively, and then it’s time to move on to something else they are interested in. Hmm… skeletons perhaps?
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This Spider Thematic Unit 30 Activities: Checkout preview above.
Spiders is divided into areas of literature, media, music, art, literacy activities, math activities, worksheets, science activities, creative writing, word wall words, and guided reading. The activities are clearly written, easy to use, and need limited amounts of preparation. All activities have clearly defined core objectives.
Contents Include:
Shared Reading Activities
I’M A SPIDER: Building Metacognition Skills
Literacy Activities:
Spider Soup: Identifying Alphabet Letters
The Sneaky Spider: Producing Rhyming Words
Sneaky Spider Words: Reading Sight Words
Home Sweet Web: Matching Alphabet Letters
Spider Walk: Beginning Sounds
Spider Walk Change: Changing Initial or Ending Sounds to Make New Words
Web Treasures: Sorting Objects into Categories
Category Sort: Identifying Word Meanings & Nuances
Spin a Web: ABC Order
Math Activities
The Hungry Spiders: Identifying Numbers
Spider Shapes: Identifying Shapes
Spider Frames: Counting and Cardinality
Spider Legs: Decomposing Numbers
Fill The Web: Ten Frame Hunt
Writing Activities
Real Pictures Word Wall (Beautiful Photographs)
Spider Word Wall
Writing Prompts:
Eensy Wensy Spider
Do I Like Spiders?
Labet-it Spider
Guided Reading Books
Are You a Spider? Level A
Are You a Spider? Level C
Kitchen
Spider Cookie
Science
The Arachnid (Science Journal Labels)
Spider Facts
Sticky Spiders
Art Projects
Glitter Spider Web
Spider Construct
Spider Hat
Songs
Spin, Spin, Spin a Web
A Spider Song
Ten Little Spiders
© Kathy Crane
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Set up a Thematic Writing Center That will simplify your life as a teacher and challenge your students to become independent writers!
Contents:
The Spider: Can, Has, Is, Are, Live Chart
The Bat: Can, Has, Is, Are, Live Chart
Write About the Spider (Adjectives/Can, Has, Is,...)
Write About the Bat (Adjectives/Can, Has, Is, ...)
Label-It I Can Chart
Label-It Student Worksheets
Make a List I Can Chart
Make a List Student Worksheet
Spiders Word Wall
Write a Story I Can Chart
Write a Story Prompt Worksheet
Write the Room I Can Chart
Write the Room Worksheets
Write the Room Alphabet
QR Sight Words
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his NEWLY UPDATED SPOOKY Halloween unit is divided into areas of literature/media, music, art, literacy, math and science activities, creative writing, word wall, and guided reading. The activities are clearly written, easy to use, and need limited amounts of preparation.
Bring some Spooky Fun into your classroom or home!
Unit Includes the Following:
Literacy Activities:
Pumpkin Smasher: Identifying Initial Sound
Mystery Letter: Identifying letters
Pumpkin Bingo: Identifying Letters
Trick or Treat: Using Onset/rime.
Independent Activities
Ghostwriter: Writing Uppercase Letters
Fall Into the ABC’s: Tracing & Writing Uppercase Letters
Halloween Sounds: Matching Sounds
Math Activities:
Monster Math-Mash : Identifying More or Less
Candy Count: Building Equivalent Sets of Numbers
Missing Pumpkins: Ordering Numbers
Candy Match: Matching Quantity to Number
Independent Activities
Halloween Buddies: Number Recognition
The Great Pumpkin: Matching Numbers & Quantity
Writing Prompts/Word Wall
My Costume
Halloween
Halloween Word Wall Words
Guided Reading Books
Trick or Treat
Class Made Books
Trick or Treat
Science
Witch Stew: Making Conclusions Based on Observations and Experiences
Monster Slime: Following Directions to Complete an Experiment
Art Projects
Pumpkin,Pumpkin Puppet
Construct a Jack
Orange Ghost
Triangle Witch
Pumpkin Lantern
Songs
Pumpkin-Pumpkin
The Orange Ghost
Ten Little Ghosts
The Old Witch
There's No Such Thing as a Witch
Halloween Is All Around
Haunting: A Free Alphabet Game
Also Available on Teachers Pay Teachers
Product Description
Spider Book Study and Writing Activities
This spider book study unit is a great way to meet important common core standards in literacy and informational text using any fiction and nonfiction spider book or our spotlighted books, Spiders by Gail Gibbons, I Love Spiders by John Parker, and Mrs. Spider's beautiful Web.
All lessons are easily adaptable to students from Pre-K through 2nd grade. The lessons are fun and engaging and cover many areas of language arts covering academic core standards. All lessons can be carried over to more than one day, depending on the time you have available.
Contents Include:
Lesson #1 Visualize
Lesson #2 Gathering Information
Lesson #3a Gathering and Organizing Information
Lesson #3b Writing Informational text
Lesson #4 Labeling Information
Lesson #5 Fiction
Lesson #6 Extend
Lesson #7 Sight Word Games
Lesson #8 Writing Fiction
© Kathy Crane Kindergarten Kiosk
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Product Description
Halloween Alphabet Activity
Build toward automaticity of letter naming as you play this delightful Halloween themed letter fluency game. Your student's just might "Oooo" like a ghost, "Heehee" like a witch, "Yeooow" like a cat, "T'dum" like a Frankenstein, or do a "Trick or Treat" letter naming race. Download for FREE and let the fun begin!
© Kathy Crane Kindergarten Kiosk
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Also Available at Teachers Pay Teachers!
Product Description
STEM Skill Lessons
Insects
Students love to explore creepy crawly insects. Give them the opportunity with these fun, developmentally appropriate lessons!
Fulfills next generation science standards!
Contents Include
Build An Insect Zoo
Catching Insects
Insect Memory
Insect Observation
Insect Magnification
Insect Body Parts
Ladybug, Ladybug
My Insect
Insect Trap Engineering
Baby Bumblebee
Painting Bugs
© Kindergarten Kiosk
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