Spiders
 by Jan Wood

5-13-01
These activities will be part of a 6 week unit on bugs which will culminate in the release of the painted lady butterflies we will watch develop from caterpillars.

 

Lesson One:

Ask students selected, appropriate questions from the site:

http://www.mov.vic.gov.au/spiderslive/test.html. Graph the results.


Keep the graph to compare to the results of the same questions asked and graphed at the end of the lessons.

Lesson Two:

Recite the old favorite rhyme and song Little Miss Muffet and Itsy Bitsy Spider

What do you know about spiders?

List everyone's idea as stated.

 

Assessment:
 Keep the list of what is known about spiders to compare what was learned at the end of unit.

 

Read: Spectacular Spiders
by Linda Glaser, Gay Holland (Illustrator)

Ages (5-7). A young girl takes us on a tour of her backyard.  She explains some of the behaviors of garden spiders, how they trap insects and how they keep the insect population under control.


Project the ground spider model from Seminar on  Science CD. Compare spiders to what students have learned about insects.

 

Example: spiders have eight legs, insects have six.
                
Project the images from http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/InfoNed/webthread.html

Students will be able to:

 

·         Observe and describe objects in their environment in order to organize information and make           comparisons (e.g., cats have fur, fish live in water, rocks are hard)

  • Classify a variety of organisms based on their characteristics, and use this scheme as a tool to organize information about the diversity of life forms

 

Lesson Three:

 

Create a vivarium

Use a 10-gallon aquarium, cheesecloth and a large elastic band (to cover the top) to create a vivarium. Create the habitat using soil, branches and grass from the area of collection. Provide prey.  Put the vivarium in the science center along with magnifying glasses and tape measures and rulers.

Students will be able to:

  • Observe and display understanding of the needs of plants and animals in the classroom by caring for them responsibly

Lesson Four:

 

Hula-hoop observation

Give each student a hula-hoop, a magnifying glass, a bug-book journal and a pencil to take on their search for terrestrial life. Tell the students before the trip to the playground that they are responsible for keeping everything safe within their hula-hoop and they are responsible for keeping track of everything they see in their hula-hoop. Tell them to choose their site carefully because once they put their hoops down they are not to move them. Model how to sit outside the hoop and use a magnifying glass to look in very carefully.  Journal either with pictures or words what they find.

 

Assessment:

Come back to circle in the room and list what they have seen. Turn in the magnifying glasses and journals. Ask whether they picked a good site. What would they change?

 

Students will demonstrate an increasing ability to use technology to observe nature.

Students will be able to:

  • Recognize that scientific tools often give more information about things than can be obtained by using our senses directly
  • Use simple tools in a safe and responsible manner
  • Visit habitats and describe the organisms generally found in each habitat

Project the site: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/InfoNed/jaws.html

Lesson Five:

Read Miss Spider's Tea Party Ages 4-8. Miss Spider eagerly waits for some guests to join her at tea, but because spiders are in the habit of eating their company, no one wants to join her.

 

Spider venom experiment

 

All spiders have venom it is necessary for the digestion of the spider's food.  This experiment will simulate the effect of spider's venom on its prey.

Materials
One cup per student
One sugar cube per student
One straw
Warm Water

Procedures

  1. Give each student a cup with a sugar cube in the bottom and a straw. Explain that the cubes are like an insect's body -- hard!
  2. Have children try to suck up the sugar cube. What happens?

  3. Have children add a few drops of warm water. The water dissolves the sugar cubes just as the spider's venom dissolves the insect's body when the spider spreads venom into the insect's body. Because a spider can turn its food to liquid, it can eat without chewing! Now try using the straw.
  4. Discuss how people's diets would change if we didn't have teeth.

Discussion
Because the spider can only digest fluid food, predigestion must take place outside the spider's body. Some people believe that spiders suck blood; this is not correct. Spiders inflict a wound with their fangs and, through the wound, inject digestive enzymes into the wound to liquefy the tissues of their prey. Then the spider pumps the insect dry, leaving nothing but an empty shell behind.

 

http://www.sedl.org/scimath/pasopartners/spiders/lesson3a1.html

 

Students will be able to:

  • Identify and describe the basic requirements for sustaining life, e.g. plants and animals need food for energy and growth
  • Describe and give examples of the various types of interactions that occur among organisms (e.g. predator-prey, symbiotic, producer-consumer-decomposer, host-parasite) to demonstrate how organisms compete or cooperate with each other to gain food, resources or space

 

Lesson Six:

 

Talk about predator and prey, what does a spider eat? What eats a spider?  How does a spider protect itself?


Bring in army camouflage and talk about how men who are in the army use camouflage to blend into their surroundings and make it hard to be seen. Talk about previous learning about animals who use camouflage to protect themselves. Ask how spiders might use camouflage to survive

 

Read:  The Lady and the Spider (Reading Rainbow)
by Faith McNulty, Bob Marstall (Illustrator)

 

With camouflage in mind, look around the room and see where a spider might hide. Project the site: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Info/spiderinfo.htm to show students the parts of the spider. Make spiders using pieces of carrots, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and grapes, or for more permanent spiders use clay. Use toothpicks, markers, and pipe cleaners to help create the spider.

 

Divide into two groups. One group will be birds and the other group will be spiders. The birds will leave the room while the spider group hides their spiders. The birds have five minutes to find their supper. After five minutes locate the spiders not found by the birds. These are the spiders that survived. Switch places.  Locate the surviving spiders and come together for discussion.

 

Assessment
How many spiders were found?

Why weren't the others found?

What made it easy for some spiders to be found? What made it difficult to find the other spiders? What would you do next time?

 

 

Curriculum Standard: Students will increasingly quantify their interactions with phenomena in the natural world, use these results to understand differences of scale in objects and systems, and determine how changes in scale affect various properties of those objects and systems.

 

Students will be able to:

  • Explore simple scale models of very large and very small objects that can be made from simple familiar materials (e.g., clay, sand, paper, wood)


.

 

Lesson Seven:

 

Read: Spiders Spin Webs by Yvonne Winer, Karen Lloyd-Jones (Illustrator)

This book offers readers the chance to look up close at a stunning variety of webs and spiders from around the world.

 

Prepare a web for students following these directions offered at: http://www.powerup.com.au/~glen/spider10.htm

 

 

 

PRESERVING A SPIDER'S WEB

You need: A piece of black card, glue, spray can of varnish, spray can of paint.

1. Make sure the spider has finished with the web and is not on the web.

2.Spread a thin layer of glue on the black card.

3. Spray the web with the paint, gold or white are particularly suitable. Or you could gently brush on some talcum powder.

4. Bring the glued side of the card carefully up behind the web. Avoid any sideways movement. Try to get all parts of the web to stick to the card at once.

5. Cut the supporting threads at the edges of the web - the spider will soon make a new one.

6. Spray the web with varnish to form a protective layer. Hang up your preserved web - it makes an unusual and attractive picture if you frame it.

It takes practice to get spider's webs to stick onto the card without distortion. Don't be disappointed if your first efforts are rather folded or tangled up.

 

 

 

Have students construct their own spider webs with black paper, Elmer's Glue and glitter. Use the glue to "draw a spider web on the black paper. Sprinkle the glue with glitter. Let dry.

 

 

Go to: http://www.unibas.ch/dib/nlu/staff/sz/spidergallery.html for a spider web construction gallery. There are wonderful pictures of spiders and their webs

 

Go to: http://pbs-saf.virage.com/cgi-bin/visearch?user=pbs-saf&template=template.html&query=spiders&category=0&viKeyword=spiders

 Scientific American Frontiers -- to see video clips from an April 1999 Spider show

 

For a microscopic view of spider webs and spinnerets go to http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Info/spindraad.htm

 

Read: Dream Weaver  by Jonathan London, Rocco Baviera Ages 4-7. Watching a yellow spider on its web, a boy imagines himself spider size and observes nearby creatures: an ant, a snail, and a hiker, who breaks the web as well as the spell of imagination

 

Students will be able to:

 

Describe/identify random differences between individuals of the same species of plant or animal, e.g. students can examine parts of plants of the same species and recognize variations.

 

For background information on spiders:

 

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/hall_tour/spectrum/24.html

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/explorit/science/spider.html

http://www.viroqua.k12.wi.us/teachersites/spiders.htm

 

http://www.discovery.com/exp/spiders/zooms/981030zoom3.html

 

http://www.mov.vic.gov.au/spiders/ident.html

 

http://kidscience.about.com/kids/kidscience/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enature.com%2Fguides%2Fselect_insects_and_spiders.asp

 

For additional lesson plans check out the following sites:

 

http://www.viroqua.k12.wi.us/teachersites/spiders.htm

 

http://www.beakman.com/spider/spider.html

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/InfoNed/The_spider.html

 

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/2221/spiders.html

 

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/6065/S.html


Read Aloud Spider Books:

 

 

Dream Weaver -- London
A House Spider's Life -- Himmelman

How Spiders Make Their Webs -- Bailey
I didn't Know That Spiders Have Fangs -- Llewellyn

The Itsy Bitsy Spider -- Trapani

Know It Alls:  Spiders! -- Nicholas

The Lady and the Spider (Reading Rainbow)--McNaulty

The Miss Spider series -- Kirk

Outside and Inside Spiders --Markle

 

The Spider -- Lane

Spiders -- Gibbons

Spiders Lunch: All About Garden Spiders -- Cole

Spider Names -- Canizales

Spiders Spin Webs -Winer

The Very Busy Spider -- Carle

Zoe's Webs -- West

 

Books for background information suggested by AMNH course Spiders

 

Emerton, J.H. (1961). The Common Spiders of the United States. New York: Dover Publications, 227 pp

 

Foelix, R.F. (1996). Biology of Spiders (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 330 pp.

 

Kaston, B.J. (1978). How to Know the Spiders (3rd ed.). (Pictured Key Nature Series). Dubuque, Iowa: W.C. Brown, 272 pp.

Levi, H.W. & Levi, L.R. (1990). Spiders and Their Kin. (Golden Guides). New York: Golden Books, 160 pp

 

Preston-Mafham, R. & Preston-Mafham, K. (1993). Spiders of the World. London: Blandford, 191 pp.