Spider Craft Tutorial

So for Spider Day each year, I make these fun creatures with my students. 

For each spider, you'll need the following: 

1 pipe cleaner for the body

12 beads for the body

4 pipe cleaners for the legs (I found animal print pipe cleaners one year at Meijer, and I've never turned back! The kids love them, and they make really cool spiders!)

Take the pipe cleaner for the body, and string 6 beads onto it.

Fold it in half. 

Take the two ends of the pipe cleaner, and holding them together, string a bead onto both of them together.

Then, pull the two sides apart and string two beads onto each side.

Finally, take the last bead and put both ends through in opposite directions.

Pull to tighten it, and then take the two ends, twist them a couple of times, and cut off the excess.

You've now made the body of the spider.

Next, grab two of the pipe cleaners you're using for legs.

Place them under the spider's middle section. Grab the pipe cleaners, twist them together once, and lay the legs out to the side.

Next, turn the spider back over so that the top is facing you. 

Take the remaining 2 pipe cleaners and feed them through the holes in the spider's body from the top, down. 

Then, flip the spider back over on its back. Pull the pipe cleaners all the way through, and twist them a time or two.

Then, just arrange the legs so there are four on each side.

All that's left is to bend the legs....

...and trim the excess length.

Viola!

Happy spider making!

Spider Day!

It was spider day in 4C today! Since our school doesn't celebrate or embrace Halloween, I choose to take the opportunity to have a "Spider Day" instead. And since tomorrow is Reformation Day (a big deal at the private school where I teach), I elected to have Spider Day today. 

We started our day reading this book:

It's a fantastic cautionary tale written by Mary Howitt in 1829. The kids love it because the pictures in this book are phenomenal, and because it doesn't have a happy ending. The spider eats the fly. It allows for some amazing discussion about the types of friends we choose and how sometimes flattery is sincere, and sometimes it's not. Not everyone who speaks sweetly offers sweets. 

Then, we spent some time in small group reading. We read a few books about spiders. 

We watched a spider video. I have a subscription to Discovery Education's United Streaming, and we watched the video called The Incredible World of Spiders by Discovery Education. In case you care to look it up, you can check it out HERE.

We did a spider craft. 

You can find my tutorial on how to make these little arachnids HERE. The kids really enjoy them, and they're anatomically accurate enough to go along with learning the parts of a spider. :)

We still had time to get in our math test, some handwriting, and other essentials as the quarter gets ready to come to a close. It's always fun to do something a little different for a day. I really enjoy watching the students' excitement as we learned about arachnids. 

Make it Monday

I'm Al.Most.Done. But not really... Reality Check. Are we ever DONE? Nope. Never. At some point (probably on Sunday night...since Monday we have Open House) I will call it "Done enough." But I'm not there yet.

I am so ADD in my classroom! Are you that way, too? I work a little bit over here, then get distracted by a project over there, then get distracted back to what I was doing, etc. It happens all the time. It's why sometimes I feel like my to-do list is only growing, not shrinking. BUT... today, I crossed several things off!

Woohoo!

One of those things that I crossed off was "Table Group Signs." I had in my head the kind of thing I wanted, which is sometimes dangerous. I knew I wanted "pom" like things to hang from the ceiling, but I didn't want "floofy" ones. So, I stopped at the dollar store. Nada. I stopped at Hob Lob. I almost paid $10 for poms that I didn't even like because I was afraid I wouldn't find what I had in my head. But no. Nope. Didn't buy them. Finally I decided to try the party store. I walked in and....ta-da! 

I figured I could just cover up the flower part since my room is NOT luau/beachy theme. Much to my pleasant surprise, these lovelies came in a package of six and the best part is that they were ON CLEARANCE... $4 for these! WOOHOO!

 So I grabbed 'em and took 'em to my classroom. I immediately pulled them out of the package and assembled them. I was glad to find that the hibiscus flowers were on cardboard that you could attach when you assembled them (or not, as in my case. I just recycled them.)

 I got out my trusty glue gun and placed a dab in the middle of the circle and then added my number. My numbers are just from one of those punch-out teacher letter/number sets. Then I flipped it over and did the same thing to the back, so that both sides would display the number.

 Ta-da! Easy, and cute!

 So then I hung one up from the ceiling. I stepped back to look and..... um. No. Way too close to the ceiling up there. The kids would need chiropractic care if they had to crane their necks to check their table number like that.

 And so I got out some string and made myself a longer loop for my sign.

MUCH better. Here they are! 

I was even so overzealous while making these, that I made #s 1-5... and then I realized I only have 4 table groups. So this lovely is resting in the cabinet until I decide to rearrange my room and have more than 4 groups. :)

Just what I had in mind. They look so good, I think! I'm proud of them! So simple, but they add so much, and they are a little nicer than just making laminated signs (not knocking those, I've made them in the past... just wanted to do something a little fancier this year!)

 Well, that's all for my first Make it Monday! :) I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics!