Be Nice to Spiders, by M. Bloy Graham

Helen the spider comes to the zoo and happily lives among the animals, until it’s time for the Mayor’s visit. What happens when all of Helen’s webs are knocked down? After reading the story children will be more aware of the benefit of spiders.

Materials

Play dough that is getting too dry for daily use.
Pipe cleaners in many colors cut into 3-4 inch sections.
Contact paper cut into 12-inch sections
A bag of plastic spiders or a bag of black beans to pretend to be spiders

Vocabulary

Matchbox (little tiny box, maybe it could hold one matchbox car or a piece of jewelry)
Ventilator (the vent, chimney like thing that you see on roofs)
Satisfied (feeling happy and contented)
Paradise (the perfect place for a spider to live)
Arachnid (animals that have two body parts)
Prey (the next victim for lunch)
Sticky (when something gets stuck to something else upon contact)

Before Reading the Story

Ask the children if they help do chores at home? Let them share anyway that they help out at home. If they do not respond to your question ask if anyone is responsible for making their bed, taking care of a pet, brushing their teeth before bed? Ask the children to help name some of the jobs you have at school to do (sweeper, plant watering, book straightener, etc. Talk about jobs, why do we have them? Why is it important to keep our room clean? Do you have a custodian who comes in after hours? Talk about their job. Take a moment and help the children write a short note to the custodian that you can hang by the door. (Thank you for cleaning our room, it looks pretty. I like when our room smells good. You wash the floor, my Mommy washes the floor at my house). Explain to the children that today’s story is about a helper at the zoo. Show the children the cover of the book and point to the spider. Say this is Helen and she is the helper at the zoo. Ask the children if they can guess how Helen helps? Read the title and begin the story.

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities;develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them. AND Literacy/Early Writing; develops understanding that writing is a way of communicating for a variety of purposes.

Reading the Story

On the very first page when the zookeeper reads the note from Billy, stop and ask the children if they can guess what kind of pet might be in that little tiny box? When Helen runs like lightning, use your hand to show how quickly. When you get to the part that says, “the lions were annoyed but Helen was delighted”, stop and ask why they think Helen was so happy to see all those flies? (Spiders eat flies). When the zookeeper tells the men to get rid of all the spider webs, stop and ask the children what they think is going to happen?

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; tpo act out stories on dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

After Reading the Story

Ask the children if they remember why we should all be nice to spiders? (They eat flies). Talk to the children about some spider facts and safety. 1) Spiders belong to the family called Arachnids because they have two body parts. Who knows how many body parts insects have (3)? The world is full of many different kinds of spiders. Some are poisonous and dangerous to people but many are not. Spiders will bite if they are scared so please do not touch spiders. Spiders have sticky feet that they can use to climb up trees and walls.

Science/Science Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Discovery

Put out your old playdough today and many pipe cleaners cut in quarters. Explain to the children that you are going to be making spiders. Have them roll the play dough into a ball and then slightly flatten it. Ask the children if they can remember how many legs a spider has (8)? Have them count out eight legs and stick them into their spider. Spiders also have 8 eyes. The child can either poke 8 holes to represent eyes of add 8 googly eyes. When the playdough dries, the children can paint their spiders. Or, make spiders from pinecones.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information through a variety of means, including discussion, drawings, maps, and charts. AND Creative Arts/Art; progresses i abilities to create drawings, paintings, models, and other art creations that are more detailed, creative, or realistic.

Music and Movement

Sing The Eensy Weensy Spider. Change it up by making a Teeny Tiny Spider and a Humongous Giant Spider.

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; uses an increasingly complex and varied spoken vocabulary.

If you have a spider puppet or stuffed toy spider you can do the poem, Little Miss Muffet.

Choose a child to be Miss or Mr Muffet. Put a pillow in the center of your group circle and have the child sit on it. Begin the poem. At the “along came a spider”, allow another child to put the spider in front, behind, beside, on her head, in her lap. The children must say where the spider is and the Muffit child can jump away. The child who put the spider in a position is now the new Muffit and another child gets to place the spider.

Little Miss/Mr Muffet

Sat on a tuffet (another name for pillow)

Eating her curds and whey (kind of like cottage cheese)

Along came a spider

Who sat down _____________her/him

And frightened Miss/Mr Muffet away.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; builds an increasing understanding of directionality, order, positions of objects, and words such as up, down, over, under, top, bottom, inside, outside, in front, and behind.

Blocks

Use masking tape to make a large spider web design on the floor. Challenge the children to use blocks to cover the spider web. Are they able to find the correct sized blocks to fit upon the tape? Can they make a pattern using several types of blocks? Add any plastic insects that you might have today, or add several flies from the resource pattern. The children can pretend to fly their insect and get caught in the web.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows progress in using standard and non-standard measures for length and area of objects.

Art

Explain to the children that spider webs are sticky so that insects, like flies, get stuck in the web and cannot get out. The spider then eats the insect for lunch or dinner. Give each child a 12-inch section of contact paper that you have taken the backing off of. Put it on the table sticky side up. Give the children collage materials and let them make a sticky collage. These are fun if you add small 3D items such as buttons, bottle caps, feathers, etc.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes. AND Creative Arts/Art; gains ability in using different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation.

Sand and Water

Fill the table with sand today. Add spiders and tongs/pincers and small containers. The children use the tongs/pincers to dig through the sand and pickup the spiders. How many spiders did you capture? Who found the most spiders? As the children dig for spiders you can review with them spider facts that you have learned. If you do not have small plastic spiders to add to the table today, you could use of black beans.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer. AND Mathematics/Number & Operation; begins too use language to compare numbers of objects with terms such as more, less, greater than, fewer, and equal to.

Library and Writing

Get books or pictures of real spiders that the children can look at. Notice how all spiders do not look the same however all have 8 legs and 8 eyes.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; progresses in learning how to handle and care for books; knowing to view one [page at a time in sequence from front to back; and understanding that a book has a title, author, and illustrator. AND Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Dramatic Play

In the story, Helen was helping to keep the zoo clean by eating all the flies. Give the children damp paper towels and a broom and allow them to help clean the dramatic center or any center. Have them wipe the shelves with the damp towels and look for broken toys that should be tossed out. If you have a non-electrical vacuum (sweeper brush), let the children use it to get the lint off the carpet. (The children in my room loved using this piece of equipment and I had to finally put it up as a helper job).

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.

Math and Manipulatives

Attach tape to a hula-hoop making a simple web type of design. Turn the sticky side out and hang it against, or lean it against the wall. Give the children puff balls (spiders) which they can throw at the hula-hoop target. Let them count how many spiders stuck to the tape.

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; demonstrates increasing abilities to coordinate movements in throwing, climbing, kicking, bouncing balls, and using the slide and swing. AND Mathematics/Number & Operation; begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects.

Outdoor Play

If you have a large cemented area, draw a giant spider web with chalk. This does not have to be fancy (see resources). The children can then move from side to side by hopping or jumping on the triangles. Or the children can walk the lines forward, backwards, or sliding. This could also be done inside in your large group area using masking tape.

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; shows increasing proficiency, control, and balance in walking, climbing, running, jumping, hopping,skipping, marching, and galloping.

Transitions

Play Bigger Than, Smaller Than. Ask the children to tell you if something is bigger than or smaller than an object or animal. Is a cat bigger than or smaller than a cow? Is a spider bigger than or smaller than a bead? Is a cow bigger than or smaller than an Elephant? Is an Elephant bigger than or smaller than an airplane? Continue naming two objects and asking if the first is bigger or smaller than the second?

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in series, and grouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size.

Resources

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; shows increasing proficiency, control, and balance in walking, climbing, running, jumping, hopping, skipping, marching, and galloping. AND Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multi-step directions.

Frog’s Lunch, Dee Lillegard

This is a very short and simple story that is fun to teach nutrition and planning a good lunch as well as having some frog fun.

Materials

Several copies of the insects page
Scarf with a picture of a fly attached to one corner
A party blower per child (I have found these at the Dollar Store in the party isle.
Masking tape
Yardstick or tape measure
Shape frogs and shapes

Vocabulary

Lily pad (a plant that grows in the water that frogs like to sit on).
Carnivore (a meat eating or animal eating creature)

Before reading the Story

Tell the children that you have been thinking about lunch. I wonder what it is going to be? Let the children guess. Ask the children if they know how to find out what lunch will be today (the menu, ask the cook)? Ask the children what their favorite school lunch is. Write down their responses on a piece of paper and hang it near the lunch table.

Literacy/Print Awareness & Concepts; recognizes a word as a unit of print, or awareness that letters grouped to form words, and words are separated by spaces.

Reading the Story

Read the title of the story and then ask the children if they know what frogs eat for lunch? Say “I wonder how they get their lunch”? Let the children comment for a moment about what they know about frogs’ diet and then begin the book.

Science/Science Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

After Reading the Story

Ask the children what did the frog have to do to catch his lunch? (He had to sit so still, He had to wait, He had to stay on the lilypad).

Explain to the children you’re going to play a game called Frog’s Lunch. Use a scarf and attach a picture of a fly to one corner of it . Explain to the children that they will pretend to be the frog and the scarf is the fly. Put a pillow or small blanket on the floor to be the lilypad and have a child sit upon it. Tell the child that he/she is the frog and must sit very, very still until it is just the right moment to grab the fly. You, the teacher, are the fly. Hold the scarf over the child’s head and slowly circle it around the child’s head. The other children can make the buzzing noise of the fly. The child who is the frog must try to catch the fly as it circle by. Let the children take turns being the frog.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing patterns and shapes, stringing beads, and using scissors.

Discovery

In the story, the eyes are very important to the frog in order to catch his lunch. Put out any kaleidoscope, color paddles, fly eyes, binoculars, magnifying glass, and toilet paper tubes that you have. Encourage the children to look through each and talk with them about how it changes how and what they see.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops increasing ability to observe and discuss common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects and materials.

Music and Movement

Teach the children Five Little Speckled Frogs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF32P24lUCA

Let 5 children come to the front of the room and be the frogs. As the children sing and count down, the 5 can take turns jumping into the pool. Sing until everyone gets a turn to be a frog.

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances. AND MAthematics/Number & Operations; demonstrates increasing interest and awareness of numbers and counting as a means for solving problems and determining quantity.

Blocks

Help the children make a frog pond out of blocks. Fill the frog pond with paper cut out insects from the resource page. Gently unroll the party blowers and attached a piece of rolled over masking tape to the end. Show the children how to blow the blower and catch an insect by having it stick to the tape. Make the insects large enough that you can mark them with a letter. Challenge the children to try to catch a letter fly that is in their name. You can also use this for numbers or colors.

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; identifies at least 10 letters of the alphabet, especially those in their own name. AND Approaches to Learning; Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences.

Art

Cut out simple frog heads and have the children add eyes and a long tongue. Make it larger that the one shown in the resource section. Now encourage the children to draw insects. (Real insects have three body parts, 6 legs, wings, and antennas). Have the children cut around their insect and glue it to the end of the long tongue.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information through a variety of means, including discussion, drawings, maps, and charts. AND Mathematics/ Geometry & Spatial Sense; progresses in ability to put together and take apart shapes.

Library and Writing

Have the children watch Sid The Science Kid video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARD1MAh434w. Encourage the children to draw a nutritious meal that has parts from each of the food groups.

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; shows growing independence in hygiene, nutrition, and personal care when eating, dressing, washing hands, brushing teeth , and toileting.

Sand and water

If you have small frog counters, add plastic lids to be lilypads. How many frogs can the child add to the lilypad before it begins to sink?

Mathematics/Number & Operations; beins to make one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and in matching groups of objects.

Dramatic Play

Encourage the children to make a healthy meal using the plastic foods from the center. Add some plastic insects that they can embellish their meal with just for fun. You could also add lunch boxes or lunch sacks. Today might be a good day to encourage the boys to use the dramatic play center.

Creative Arts/ Dramatic Play; participates in a variety of dramatic play activities that become more extended and complex. AND Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; shows growing independence in hygiene, nutrition, and personal care when eating, dressing, washing hands, brushing teeth , and toileting.

Math and Manipulatives

Cut out the frogs with shapes on their bellies and the objects from the resources. The children match the objects to the correct frog by shape.

Mathematics/Geometry; Spatial Sense; begins to recognize, describe, compare, and name common shapes, their parts and attributes.

Outdoor play

Play Frog in the Middle. Bring a beanbag out to the playground. Have two children play toss with the beanbag back and forth. The third child stands in between the two tossers and tries to intercept and catch the beanbag. The child in the middle is the frog and the beanbag is his lunch that he must catch. Once he catches it, the children can change places.

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; participates actively in games, outdoor play, and other forms of exercise that enhance physical fitness.

Explain to the children that frogs are good jumpers. Frogs can jump an average of two feet/24 inches. Mark 2 feet/24 inches on the ground and challenge the children to see if they can jump as far as a frog. Practice jumping from a standing still position, a frog position, and a running broad jump. Use the yardstick to measure how far the children can jump from each position.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows progress in using standard and non-standard measures for length and area of objects.

Transitions

Play Categories as the children go off to the next activity. Define carnivore for the children as a meat eating or animal eating creature like a frog and people. The first category is name other animals that are carnivores. If you use up this category, ask the children to name some foods that a carnivore might eat (bugs, hamburgers, etc).

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & problem Solving; develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem.

Resources

Bugs for Lunch, by Margery Facklam

Bugs for lunch? Well yes, depending on what type of creature you are. Reading this poetic story introduces the children to many animals that eat bugs for their lunch.

Materials

Insect lotto boards
Poker chips or small plastic circles

Vocabulary

Bugs (another name for insect.)
Entomophagy (a person who eats bugs)

Before Reading the Story

Ask the children to name some of their favorite lunch foods. Afterwards tell the children that you are going to read a book called Bugs For Lunch. Ask if they have ever eaten any bugs. Most children will laugh and say gross. Ask the children if they know who does eat bugs for lunch? Give them a moment to reply and then introduce the story.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Reading the Story

Point out the variety of bugs on each page and name those that you can. Those that you do not know, look for inside an insect identification book. Have the children repeat the many varied names of the insects.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction, and poetry.

After Reading the Story

Do a walk through of the book and see if the children can recall the names of all the animals that eat bugs. Tell the children that in many parts of the world people eat insects and they say that they taste good! People say that they are crunchy. Ask the children to help you list other foods that are crunchy.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; begins to make comparisons between several objects based on a single attribute.

Science

Bring in any bug homes (bee hive,cocoon) or dead insects that you might have for the children to look at through the magnifying glasses. Bring in an insect identification book. Take this out onto the playground with you and take bug boxes to capture the insects to better examine.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Music and Movement

Sing Five Little Speckled Frogshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziGG_L9C12o

Five little speckled frogs,

Sitting on a speckled log

Eating the most delicious bugs, yum, yum

One jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool

Then there were four more speckled frogs, glub, glub.

(Sing down 4, 3, 2, 1–Then there were no more speckled frogs. Glub, glub)

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increasing ability to count in sequence to 10 and beyond.

Blocks

Have the children use the blocks to make a pond. Using two poker chips, show the children how to slide one poker chip off the edge of the other to make it jump like a frog into the pond.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in eye-hand coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes ad patterns, stringing beads and using scissors.

Art

Encourage the children to draw insects. As they draw remind them that insects have 6 legs and 3 body parts, etc. If they are drawing a spider, remind them that spiders have 8 legs.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways. AND Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information through a variety of means, including discussion, drawings, maps, and charts.

Sand and Water

Add dirt to the table today and plastic insects. Bring in a variety of items that the children can use to make an insect/bug environment. Include rocks, sticks, leaves, bark, etc.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information through a variety of means, including discussion, drawings, maps, and charts. AND Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

Library and Writing

Play insect bingo. Help the children read the names of each insect. (Make copies of the insect page. Cut out the pictures and glue 8 of the 12 pictures onto a clean piece of paper, one card of 8 per child. Cut out one set of 12 insects to use for the call cards. Pick up a card and name, or have a child name the insect. If the child has it on their piece of paper they may cover it with a marker. The first to cover all 8 insects shouts bingo).

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games and using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.

Dramatic Play

Bring some plastic insects to the center and encourage the children to cook some delicious meals that crunch and munch.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story. AND Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Math and Manipulatives

Use the book to go through pictures with the children and count the number of insects on each page. Give the children time to discuss the variety of bugs and they are alike and different.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increasing ability to count in sequence to 10 and beyond. AND Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops increased ability to observe and discuss common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects and materials.

Outdoor Play

Look for bugs on the playground and put into bug catchers to observe. If you find a mound of roly poly bugs, put them onto a tray and see what happens to them when they uncurl themselves. If you find ants, see if the children can find the ant trail. If you find a spider, have the children carefully examine the spider web. Encourage the children to talk about what the see and ask them questions about what the insect is doing, going, what they might eat, how many legs, etc..

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes. AND Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; grows in eagerness to learn about and discuss a growing range of topics, ideas, and tasks.

Transitions

Encourage the children to fly like an insect or crawl like an insect to the next activity

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; chooses to participate in an increasing variety of tasks and activities.

Resources