Spiders - 5ht and 6th Grade Science

In the following science lesson, students will have the opportunity to demonstrate an understanding of characteristics of organisms including plants, animals, and microorganisms, cycles and patterns in living organisms, and how human behavior and technology can impact the environment. The objectives of the lesson are that students will learn about spider characteristics, know the life cycles of spiders, and learn why protecting the spider is necessary. This lesson also includes some fun facts and folklore regarding spiders. This is a great lesson that students will be interested in.

Spiders (arthropods)
Grade Level: 5-6
1. Concepts: Spiders

2. Objectives:
􀂾 Students will learn about spider characteristics.
> Students will successfully know the life cycle of spiders.
􀂾 Students will learn why protecting the spider is necessary.

3. Materials:
> Spider pictures
> Fantastic Folklore sheet
> Would You Believe...? sheet
> Spider Specifics sheet
> Profile of Creatures from Planet X sheet
> Spider Life Cycle sheet
> Humans and Spiders sheet
> Glossary of unfamiliar terms about spiders
> White tag board
> Markers and crayons

4. Procedures:
A. Introduction
1. Read the Profile of creatures from Planet X sheet and let student's guess what type of creature you have just read about.
2. Ask students how many of them are afraid of spiders and what they know about them.
3. Show the spider pictures.
4. Tell the students that they will learn about the characteristics of spiders, life cycle of spiders, fun facts and folklore about spiders, and the effect humans have on spiders.
B. Learning activities:
1. Have students number off from one to four to form four study groups: a. Characteristics of spiders b. Life cycles of spiders c. Fun facts and folklore about spiders d. Humans and Spiders
2. Explain to the students that each group will be given sheets to study on their spider subject. Group a will be asked to give an oral report on their findings and support their report with a visual drawing of a spider and its characteristics by using the Spider Specifics sheet and the Glossary sheet. Group b will be asked to give an oral report on their findings and to support their report with a visual drawing of the life cycle of a spider by using the Life Cycle sheet.
Group c will be asked to give an oral report by taking turns at reading the Fantastic Folklore sheet and the Would You Believe... ? sheet.
Group d will be asked to give an oral report about humans and spiders and why protecting the spider is important using the Humans and Spiders sheet.
3. Give the groups 15 minutes to prepare their topics and visuals and then let each group present.

C. Conclusion:
Review that spiders are important because someday their webs may be used as an alternative to silk, and they eat insects harmful to our agriculture.

5. Evaluation:
1. Students will be given a test where they will be asked to identify the
characteristics of a spider from a picture, list the life cycles of a spider, write a short essay, with correct punctuation, about the importance of saving spiders, and for extra credit they can state two fun facts or folklore about spiders.

6. Extensions:
1. This lesson plan can also be used as a writing lesson on correct punctuations with the essay in the test.
2. The students can draw visuals of spiders or create 3D spiders from various materials and write fun facts and folklore and create a bulletin board for the room or hallway.
3. The students can be given copies of the Spider Shape Book and color in the pictures using appropriate colors and answer the questions at the end of the book. When they are done they will cut out the circle shapes for the book and staple them together and will have made their own book on spiders.

Web sites used for reference and informational sheets:
http://educate.si.edu/lessons/siyc/spiders.html
http://encarta.msn.com http://ww.enchantedlearning.com
http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~glen/spider7.htm

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