S is for Spiders...and 8 is Their Number

Every morning after we doodle and have morning centers, the kids and I complete the calendar and our morning routine, then we sing a few songs.  I let the kids pick three of them. The Itsy Bitsy Spider is one that tends to make it onto the list.  Piggybacking off of the song, I decided to throw in an impromptu lesson about spiders...and the letter "Ss".

"Did you guys know..." I began, "that spiders...have EIGHT legs?! And that's not all! Most of them...have EIGHT EYES as well?!"

They were shocked. So was I when I first found out about that info as a kid.

I drew a spider and we practiced counting to eight...

the kids chose between making a black or an orange spider.  They all chose orange.

and added 8 eyes

or 10 or 12 but hey, who's counting.

We used pipe cleaners for legs...and counted exactly eight of those as well

and talked about the letter "Ss" and the sound it makes...
we all slithered around like snakes while make the S sound.

then we added text to our art

and practiced writing the number 8.

Think I'll circle back to Ss and number 8 tomorrow...just to make sure it ssssssssssssticks.