Spaghetti Webs

Title – Spaghetti Webs
By – Jennifer Dalke
Subject – Science, Language Arts, Art
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

Illinois State Goals: 11. Understand the processes of scientific inquiry and technological design to investigate questions, conduct experiments and solve problems
12. Understand the fundamental concepts, principles and interconnections of the life, physical and earth/space sciences

Instructional Objective:
After learning about spider webs, children will construct an orb web out of cooled spaghetti on a piece of construction paper.

Supplies:
* The Spider Makes a Web, by J. Lexau
* transparencies
* cooled spaghetti
* construction paper
* glue

Anticipatory Set:
* I will show a transparency of a large spider web and ask the children if they have ever seen a web like it. Where? Where do they see spider webs? Do all spider webs look the same?

Activities:
1. I will read the story, The Spider Makes a Web.
2. I will ask the children what kinds of webs they saw in the story. I will explain to the students that there are different types of webs that spiders can make.
3. I will show transparencies of some of the most common webs that spiders make. I will stress the similarities and the differences. The last web I show will be the orb web. I will also show a step-by-step illustration of how this web is made.
4. I will show the children an orb web that I made out of cooled spaghetti. I will explain to them that they will be making similar webs.
5. I will pass out construction paper and bowls of cooled spaghetti. I will leave the transparency on the overhead so children can follow the model.
6. Students will have about twenty-five minutes to complete their projects. When they are finished, they may bring them up to me and I will hang them up.

Adaptations:
Cassie (LD)- Cassie will be given a partner to work with. She and her partner will each make her own web, but Cassie’s partner will be able to help her and Cassie will be able to watch what her partner does.

Closure:
* I will ask the students to comment on the different posters.
* I will show the other webs again and ask the students which webs they like the best. I will ask them why they think the different webs exist. Why is one better than the other?
* I will sum up the lesson by answering any questions the children might have.

Evaluation:
Students will be evaluated on their webs. They should follow the step-by-step procedure of the orb web.

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