Spider Math

Title – Spider Math
By – Jennifer Dalke
Subject – Math
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

Subject: Math Day 3

Illinois State Goals: 6. Demonstrate and apply a knowledge and sense of numbers, including numeration and operations, patterns, ratios and proportions
8. Use algebraic and analytical methods to identify and describe patterns and relationships in data, solve problems and predict results

Instructional Objective:
Students will solve a variety of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems to find out interesting facts about spiders.

Supplies:
* transparency
* overhead

Anticipatory Set:
* I will ask the students to guess how many pounds of insects a spider eats in one day. In one year? How about all of the spiders in the world? I will let them grapple with this question for awhile before I tell them the truth: The weight of insects eaten by spiders each year is more than the weight of all the people on earth.
* I will let them be amazed, and then explain that we will find out some more interesting facts in our math lesson

Activities:
1. I will turn on the overhead and put up a transparency with a variety of math problems, along with spider facts
2. I will cover up the spider facts, though, so only the math problems are visible to the students. I will tell them to take out a sheet of paper on which they will work their problems.
3. I will ask them to complete the first math problem at their desks. When they have found an answer, they should raise their hands.
4. I will call on a child to tell me the answer. I will write the correct answer next to the problem. I will, then, uncover the fact for that problem and write the answer in. I will ask the student who told me the answer to read the fact aloud.
5. I will continue in this fashion until we have completed all of the problems.

Adaptations:
Cassie (LD)- Cassie will be able to sit next to a partner who will work the problems with her.

Closure:
* I will ask the students which facts they were surprised by, and which they might have already known.
* I will ask each student to write down the fact they found to be the neatest, and to hand it in to me along with their work sheets.

Evaluation:
Students will be evaluated by their work sheets. They should have completed each of the problems. Also, they should have written down and handed in one fact that they found most interesting.

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