Spiders

Spiders

by Carol Delancy and Carmen Johnson

Overview

"Spiders" is a collective collaboration between two primary classes at Avocado Elementary school located in Homestead, FL. Our purpose/goal was to show how hands-on inquiry based science could be used effectively with young children. We started this project off by allowing our students to make "Living Things In Our Schoolyard" clusters. These clusters showed forms of life that they thought acually existed on our schoolground. The students then made physical observations of our biome and playground areas. The students drew and labeled pictures of the living things that they had "actually" seen. Their schoolyard animals of interest were noted and voted on. Spiders won!! Thus becoming the focus of our science quest.

What We Thought We Knew

Spiders eat bugs. They spin webs. They have eight legs. They bite. Some are poisonous. They have many eyes. They have thorns on their legs. They lay eggs. They keep their eggs in a sac. They have stickly stuffy in their webs.

Questions We Had

How do spiders lay their eggs? Do the males fight with the females? How hard do they bite? How do they make their webs? How big do they get? How do they wrap the bugs that they eat? Do they have teeth?

What We Found Out from Books, the Internet, and Experts

Spiders are arachnids. Their bodies are in two parts, the head and the abdomen. They do not have feelers. Most spiders have eight eyes, but some have six, four or two. Many spiders trap their food in webs. Not all spiders make webs. Some are hunters. Some spiders dig homes under the ground. Some spiders can live most of their lives under water in bubble webs. Some spiders have claws at the end of each leg. Spiders live in all sorts of environments.

What We Found Out from Experimentation

From our observations and research we found out that spiders not only eat insects. They also eat other animals. This include other spiders, birds and mice.

How We Showed What We Had Learned

Living Things clusters Making models of spiders Creative stories and poems Drawings of spiders in their natural habitats Making models of spider web weaving designs Learning spider songs Observation notes Keeping spider vivariums in our classrooms Oral discussions Picture photos Spider research papers Paper plate hanging spiders and collages

Related Sites

The Bug Club Homepage

Anansi's Motto