Five for Friday: Fun with Spiders!

Ha! Isn't this the truth? I can't sleep if I've seen one in my bedroom! I thought this was appropriate for my blog this week as we studied spiders and their habitats. 

I always start my lessons with gaining some general knowledge from the kiddos so I know which direction I need to take my instruction. We graphed whether we like spiders or not before generating our K-W-L chart.  They all enjoyed the story that Mr. Dominak absolutely DESPISES spiders =) I was a little surprised to see how many actually like them. Wonder if it is true?

In adding some excitement to our reading fun, I made little spider pointers for the kids to use in guiding their leveled readers. We also used them as spacers when writing our sentences. It is funny how one little thing generates little squeals....hehe.

After reading some informational texts, we labeled the parts of a spider and wrote a simple sentence. I also created an exercise to help my kinders understand more about letters and words. It is still confusing to them. I create a color code key to find the words in the sentences and then they have to count the number of letters and words in each sentence.  If you enjoy all of these, you can purchase the pack I put together in the link below. You will find lots of engaging activities in this pack about spiders. Kids will label body parts, practice literacy skills (high frequency words, simple sentences), work with differentiated text evidence stories, journal prompts, and create a crafty spiders with words from the -at word family. I have also included signs to make a K-W-L chart as a whole class activity. There is fun for everyone!

Fun with Spiders!

Our local fire department comes every month to teach a safety lesson and I love them! They brought their smoke this time.  Kids practiced crawling to the flooring and finding their safe place when they exit.

So, I noticed when I was reading with the kiddos this week in our leveled groups that some have not mastered our high frequency words we have covered thus far. I remembered that someone had donated a large box of cards to me a while back so I dug it out. We created our own cards and added a ring so that we can continue to add more as the year progresses. I gave the kiddos the little tip of putting it beside their bed at night to practice. This will help them remember them in the morning. I received the cutest video from a parent that night with her daughter in bed reading through each and every word with complete accuracy. Loved it!

I saw this shirt on Pinterest and it made me laugh! We all need to feel this good once in a while. Have a great weekend!