More Finding Where Spiders Live

Title – More Finding Where Spiders Live
By – Jennifer Dalke
Subject – Science, Social Studies
Grade Level – 4-5

Unit contents:

• This part deals with the End of the book, and involves launching a Balloon Journey
• Here’s a Writing Activity involving the students’ Favorite Parts
• This section is on the Main Characters and Quoting
• This portion is on Acting Out portions of the book
• This lesson is on Predicting with Charlotte’s Web
• This part uses a Crossword Puzzle to learn Scientific Facts about Spiders
• This section is on Finding Spiders’ Homes
• A similar section – Finding Where Spiders Live
• Here’s More on Finding Where Spiders Live
• This portion is on writing Haiku Poems about Spiders
• Here students take on the roles of Arachnologists and Interview each other
• The Spider’s Life Cycle is the subject of this lesson
• Graphing the Lengths of Spiders is the subject of this part
• More Graphing, this time with Facts about Spiders
• Here students Plot Facts about Spiders
• Another Math lesson, this one using Spider Math Problems
• This part involves doing Research on Spiders
• A fun activity for developing Spider Webs out of cold Spaghetti
• This portion is on Spiders’ Venom
• A Writing Activity about Wilbur’s First Day

**Note – This lesson plan uses some handout(s) that are not available, however, much of the lesson plan can be completed without the handout(s).
Subject: Social Studies

Illinois State Goals: 17. Understand world geography and the effects of geography on society

Instructional Objective:
Students will do research to find out where widow spiders live the world. They will complete
maps by coloring in the countries accordingly.

Supplies:
* reference books
* handouts
* colored pencils
* labeled notecards

Anticipatory Set:
* I will begin the lesson by asking the children what they remembered about our social studies lesson about tarantulas yesterday. Where do tarantulas live? What kind of climate do they like?
* I will explain that we will be finding out about a different kind of spider today- the widow spider. I will explain that we will determine where these spiders live in the world.
* I will tell the children that they will each research a different species of widow spiders since there are so many different kinds.

Activities:
1. I will give children handouts that show an entire world map. I will explain that today’s lesson is much like yesterday’s lesson, only we will be doing research about the whole world.
2. I will hand out colored pencils and reference books. I will take out a pile of notecards labeled with different species of widow spiders. I will have each student pick out a notecard to determine which species he/she will research.
3. I will tell the students that they are to color in the countries that their species lives in.
4. Children will have twenty to thirty minutes to do their research and complete their maps.
5. When they have finished, each child will come to the front of the room and report what they found. They should say the name of the species they researched and the countries it lives in. After each child’s report, we will try to determine what kind of climate that species likes.

Adaptations:
Cassie (LD)- Cassie will be assigned a species that lives in very few countries. I will also give her a reference book that is already marked for her.

Closure:
* After each child has reported his or her findings, we will try to find out if there is any one common factor concerning where the different species of widow spiders live. We will also try to find any species that are very similar or very different from each other in terms of habitat.
* I will ask the children to clean up and to give their colored maps to me

Evaluation:
Students will be evaluated on their reports to the class. They should include all of the appropriate countries for their species. Also, their maps will be evaluated as well. Maps should have the corrects countries colored in.

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