Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Diary Of A Spider

This week we are reading a story called, Diary of a Spider, by Doreen Cronin. It is a great story written from the spider's point of view about the world in which he lives. It is filled with great info about spiders, and some fiction themes as well. The kids LOVE this story. 

I decided to bring in a special guest today to help us understand the story even better. Meet Junior...that's the name the students came up with today! I put him on a piece of chart paper in the middle of our circle and let him crawl around. The kids were a little on edge at first, but after the initial shock wore off, the learning was on!!!


Look at these faces so intently studying Junior. Don't worry... it was a Daddy Long Legs. :) It was harmless. By the end of our time of learning they were all begging to hold him.



WE learned about many things as we watched Junior crawl around. The kids made observations and journaled about the experience. They said...
1. Junior was fast for a spider!
2. He has 6 shorter legs and 2 long legs. Those long ones must be his "feelers". 
3. He likes to dance. (This was because he would bounce up down every now and then)
4. He has more than 2 eyes. (We learned that spiders have 8.)
5. He likes the color pink. (He liked to rest on Avery's pink jacket.)

The most awesome observation came when a student noticed that we could see him really well on the paper, but he seemed to be disappear as he walked on the carpet. She asked, "Why can't my eyes see him when he walks on the carpet?' Another student chimed in, "He's camouflagin'!!!" You just cannot ask for a better moment as a teacher. That opened the door to lots of learning about defense mechanisms of animals. 

After 30 minutes or so, we added this reference chart to our worm journals so that we could refer back to it as we need to this week. 



1 comment:

  1. Not a fan of the creepy crawlers, but the kids look like they had fun learning about the spider.

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