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Spider Fun!!!

Our spider learning has officially begun! We spent the week digging into nonfiction texts… asking questions, locating facts/details, looking at nonfiction text features such as labeling, diagrams, and a glossary. We learned lots of new vocabulary words, did some comparing/contrasting, and even touched on parts of speech! Needless to say, after reading creepy crawly books everyday, I most definitely had a nightmare about HUGE spiders biting me all over last night. I guess that was bound to happen at some point… school always leaks into my dreams!

We started the week with our KWL chart. This was after my first class. We grouped post-its that were similar, categorized them, and answered questions as we learned more information.

After my 2nd class, my chart was all kinds of FULL! We didn’t answer any questions that we couldn’t “prove” yet with our reading. For example, one of the questions was “Are spiders predators or prey?” Well, I could have easily told them that they are BOTH predators and prey, but the book we read only touched on spiders as predators, so we left that alone until we learned more later that week. I loved seeing the little lightbulbs go off as they were reading books independently… like they had all the answers to our many questions!!! So cute! We have yet to read about how spiders go to the bathroom… the question that got lots of giggles :))

We noticed that in our nonfiction books, pictures with labels were ALL over the place. We discussed why authors label, and the importance of looking at all the details in both the text and the pictures. After that, my students labeled the parts of a spider. I did something a little different this year… I had my students first cut out the labels and just place the labels where they thought they belonged. Some of the words we hadn’t read about yet… cephalothorax, pedipalps, and jaw. So, my students had to make predictions based on the words they did know, and the information we had read. Then, we used new books to help us put the labels in correct spots. It was so fun watching my kiddos make their guesses and then confirm after new learning!

Love how these kiddos added webs to their spiders!

On Wednesday, it was necessary that we compare spiders to insects because our books were telling us that spiders are in fact NOT INSECTS! What??!! How can that be??!! We looked at diagrams of spiders and insects, read some more books, and then completed a Venn Diagram to sort information.

We gathered all of our information onto a class venn diagram. We left empty sticky notes for when we discover new facts about insects. We quickly realized that our knowledge of spiders was much greater than insects because we had been learning about spiders all week!

In the midst of learning about spiders, I did also start teaching about nouns. We used this cute little spider craft to brainstorm eight nouns of our own. You can get this spider craft free HERE! “Mrs. Lemons, can I give it eight eyes?” Sure! Why not!

“Mrs. Lemons, can I make it a girl? And give it a tongue?” Sure! Why not… enter class-wide announcement “GUYS, MAKE YOUR SPIDERS LOOK HOWEVER YOU WANT! YOU DON’T HAVE TO ASK ME FOR PERMISSION!” hahahaha!

We finished the week with our Can, Have, Are chart. They knew so much information that they didn’t want to stop! But, after a week of using sticky notes so much, I ran out, ha! It’s time to head to the store for more!!!

This week we will start our spider-type research. We are also going to work on all of the sorts that are in my Spider Unit! But for now, our room is all decked out with our spider learning!

And, because I love to share my little girl finds with y’all. You’ve got to check out Ruby Blue for headbands! I just found them last week and am in love! Joelle loves how comfy they are, and I #lovebigbowandicannotlie