Saint Andrews Discovery

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Spiders

Fall Fest: The Spider Room

This week the Discovery Room took on an exciting new look for Fall Fest week!

This week is ALL about SPIDERS!

The giant web and spider behind my seat was exciting and eye-catching for the kids!

We had an orb web on the floor for the children to sit on!

My goal this week was not only to educate the children about spiders but to have them leave my room with a new appreciation for what spiders do for us and how keeping them alive is very important not only for our environment but also for our own well-being.

We opened our Spider Week for the youngest scientists and kept things light and cheery. We started with a reading from one of my favorite books, Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider. The children loved all the various animal voices incorporated into the story! We discussed why a web is important for a spider. It's for catching their food! We also learned not all spiders build webs. Only about half of all spiders build webs! We learned that spiders have EIGHT legs and many have up to eight eyes! They are arachnids, as are ticks and scorpions.

For those spiders that build webs, we talked about what kinds of webs we see and what sorts of "food" gets caught in them for the spider to eat (or remove). There are orb webs, funnel webs, sheet webs, tangle webs, and more! These webs can catch flies, mosquitoes, moths, butterflies, and any insect that gets caught in its grips. Each type of web spider spins a certain kind of web and it is a master at that type of web. Webs are beautiful. We saw pictures of all beautiful shapes and sizes of webs and they were in some interesting locations: trees, grass, barns, even on antlers!

For those spiders that do not build webs (including wolf spiders that we can find in Raleigh), they find other ways to catch their prey. Some hide and pounce, some create trap-door holes in the grounds, and others hide on walls or trees and capture their prey.

Example of trap door:

We learned that spiders eat so many insects that if we didn't have spiders, we would have WAY too many insects in our environments. This helps protect crops and the spread of disease from insects.

The children had a BALL putting (pretend) insects onto Miss Marion's sticky web! We learned that the spider will wrap the insects in silk and save them for later if they are not hungry at the time. We also learned that if they catch something they don't want, they'll safely remove it and drop it off the web! One last cool web fact: some spiders eat their webs for extra (silk) proteins!

The kids were fascinated with sitting on a web!

We talked about how strong webs are and that spiders release the silk from silk glands in their spinnerets. A spider can release different kinds of silk depending on what its needs are!

Each child got to go home with his/her very own spider and we agreed to leave spiders and their webs alone outside when it wasn't bothering us in any way. :)

For the 4's and 5's Fall Fest, I added a bit more of a spooky touch to the room especially with Halloween around the corner.

Above the orb web on the floor, I added a sheet web above the children's heads!

Lights off...

Lights on...

The older children learned the parts of the spider...

about the largest and smallest spiders...

About the spider's exoskeleton and how it will shed the exoskeleton as it grows...

We discussed how some spiders (wolf spiders) carry their young on their backs! (Web spiders will wrap their young in silk and often hang them in a sac near the web.)

We discussed that there are two spiders we have to avoid in North Carolina: the brown recluse and the black widow, but both are very shy and not commonly seen. To be extra safe, it's important to avoid putting our hands in dark, quiet areas without using a flashlight and gloves. We also learned that most spiders are completely harmless and just want to be left alone!
Spiders are special creatures.

Every child went home with a spider and got the opportunity to investigate the various spiders and prey (insects) set up throughout the room.

Hopefully, now everyone respects our eight-legged friends even more than we did before!

Several great spider books...

And...

Think before you squash that spider. It's actually helping us. :)

5 Senses - Week 2 of 2 (Taste, Smell, and Touch)

The Fabulous Five Senses

Sense of Taste, Sense of Smell, Sense of Touch

Week 2

This week our focus was on the sense of taste, sense of smell, and sense of touch.

SENSE OF TASTE

We discussed the many different tastes we experience on our tongues: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. We gave examples of foods we liked and did not like and how they tasted. We agreed that we should never taste anything unless a teacher or loved one says it's okay!

SENSE OF SMELL

We talked about all the smells around us each day. We talked about how our sense of smell and sense of taste often work together to help us understand whether we like or dislike something. If we smell something that is unpleasant, we don't usually want to eat it. Or, if we smell something warm and sweet-smelling, it makes our mouths water. We sniffed various smells and tried to guess what we were smelling. Sometimes that is hard to do when you can't see it or feel it! Our senses really do work well together.

SENSE OF TOUCH

Our Word of the Week was TEXTURE. Texture is how something feels or appears to feel. We discussed the following textures: soft, smooth, hard, bumpy, sticky, rough, sharp, and slimy. We don't always just use our fingers to feel, we also use all of our skin. We know when the air is warm or cold, wet or dry by feeling it on our arms and legs and faces.

We learned a 5 Senses Song and read a short book about the senses of taste, smell, and touch.

Our Centers involved smelling various unmarked tubes and matching them to the correct picture of that scent. This was pretty hard for many of the children but a lot of fun! We also had a "Mystery Box" filled with mysterious items that the children could only reach-in and feel (no peeking!) before guessing what the item was. They had to rely on feeling its texture, understanding its shape and weight, not using their eyes! We realized how hard that was to do. In some of the younger classes, we did a sweet and salty taste test to experience the difference on our tongues. The older scientists already understand this difference quite well so we focused on our other senses. We continued various sight and sound centers using our eyes and ears to complete a task.

Demonstrating the thaumatrope!
This is an old, optical toy that, when quickly spun back and forth, appears to blend two images together. The kids enjoyed this very much!

Our youngest scientists make me smile every day! They got a kick out of all the funny noises Miss Marion was making to help them use their sense of hearing!

We used Mr. Potato Head to help discuss which parts of our bodies help us with which sense. Our eyes help us see; our ears help us hear; our skin/arms/hands help us touch; our nose helps us smell; and our tongue helps us taste. The kids loved this playful approach to the 5 senses.