Spider Week and Halloween Math FUN!

 My name is Karen and I have arachnophobia!  SO you are probably wondering how I actually taught a unit on Spiders to my 2nd graders.... Well it wasn't easy, but I have to say I learned a lot about those creepy crawly things that I despise! 
I decided to face my fear of spiders head on and I have to say it was easier than I anticipated.  The kids had a blast so I think that helped me to not dwell on my fear as much. 

Thank you to my Primary Pack friend Elyse at Proud to be Primary for her amazing unit on Spiders!  I used that along with some materials from our Charlotte's Web unit. There was a whole lot of learning going on this week but the kids were having so much fun that they didn't even realize it!

First to get my students excited about Spider Week - I decorated our room with some fun items like this tablecloth that my Halloween pixie - left for me. I think she knew I was teaching about spiders so I was pleasantly pleased when I came back from lunch to find it on my desk - full of little plastic spider rings!   I forgot to take a pic of the spiders that are hanging from my ceiling - but I found a picture of them online- so you can get the idea. 

So we started off the week with a K W L on spiders.  We read the story Diary of a Spider from our new JOURNEYS reading series.  Kids worked on fact and opinion, authors purpose and I started the discussion on Point of view - so this week we can  read Diary of a Fly and compare and contrast the text. 

Kids were ALL IN on this unit and couldn't get enough of spiders! In library they were all checking out spider books and coming to school to tell me how they went home to research spiders! 

My little learners were so excited that I have decided to carry spider week into the upcoming week ~ perfect for Halloween! I am showing  them how to dig deeper by doing some close reading with text from Elyse's unit and some passages from our Spider unit.  My class is so varied in ability levels that I need to have many levels of reading on hand to meet their needs.  Pebblego.com was a very helpful website to use while doing research for our Non-fiction reports.  Kids were able to read or listen to the information found on this site.  You do need a membership and luckily my district has always had a membership to this site. It is a fabulous resource!

Some fun art projects I found on the HGTV site you might want to try - I like the glitter webs and the trash bag web.. I think I will pass these along to our ART teacher! 

I have to say we didn't even have time to do all that was included in Elyse's spider unit.  SO next year I will have to plan ahead and start this unit a week earlier!  Definitely a fun one around Halloween!  Hmm maybe I will dress up as Charlotte this year ~ then I can really say that I conquered my phobia!

We will be finishing up our non-fiction writing so I will share my student's final products soon.  This week should be fun wrapping up spiders and working on our NEW updated Halloween Math Centers.  If you are looking to keep your kiddos engaged and having fun this week - try them out!

GRAB these centers in our TPT STORE.

They will be on sale in our store this week for only $1.00! 

Here's a sneak peek into what you will get ~

 Happy Halloween!