Subject(s): Science Grades(s): Grades 4-5

Title – Fun with spider facts
By – Jennifer Dalke
Subject – Science
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).

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:
Using reference books, students will complete a scientific crossword puzzle about spiders.

Supplies:
* spider reference books
* crossword puzzle handout
* spider lollipops
* stopwatch
* hard candy

Anticipatory Set:
* I will ask the student to recall and information and interesting facts that they learned about spiders this week.
* I will tell the children that we will be doing an activity that will be a race between teams of students. The winners will receive a special prize.

Activities:
1. I will number students off in two’s in order to pair them up into teams. I will tell them that these are the teams, and that they should talk to each other for a moment to get comfortable.
2. I will explain that we will be completing a crossword puzzle about spiders. I will tell the students that they do not know all of answers, so they will need to do quick research to find some of the answers.
3. I will hand out reference books to each team and instruct the students to plan their strategies to see how they plan to finish the fastest. I will also give out the handouts.
4. We will read the directions together as a class and I will answer any questions the children might have. If they are a little bit unsure of what to do, then we will make up our own fact and use it as an example.
5. I will bring out a stopwatch and place it on my desk. When they have finished, they are to come up and stop the stopwatch.
6. I will explain that after that, I will check the work of that group. If it is correct, then they may read the answers aloud to the class and receive the prize. If not, they may continue working.
7. I will tell them to get ready, START!
8. When a group gets all of the answers, they may read the answers aloud to the class and I will give them a spider lollipop.

Adaptations:
Cassie (LD)- Cassie will be able to participate with the rest of the students.

Closure:
* I will tell the rest of the students to be sure that they wrote down the correct answers. I will collect the papers.
* I will hand out small pieces of hard candy to the rest of the class for participating. I will encourage them to share anything interesting they might have read while doing their research.

Evaluation:
Students will be evaluated on how complete their papers are. They should have all the answers written down when they turn them in.

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