Activity
Spider activities part 2
Practice tech, reading, and tactile graphic skills with these creepy spider-themed activities!
It’s always fun to tie literacy activities to the season! Here are a couple of simple poems and tactile graphics for young students about spiders.
Spider concepts
Build spider concepts and tactile graphics skills by creating tactile graphics using these PIAF-ready images. Point out the salient characteristics of a spider and then use these different images. Exposing the student to multiple images will help the student identify future tactile images of spiders! Talk about what is the same in each picture and what is different. Can the student determine what is missing from the dangling spider and why it is missing?
Simple spider
This spider is the easiest spider to examine tactually. The 8 legs are simple raised lines, the head is a circle and the body is a slightly bigger oval.
Download the simple spider image here.
Real spider
This spider is more realistic with jointed legs.
Download the real spider image here.
Dangling spider
There are two happy simple spiders hanging from cobwebs. These spiders are front facing and have a string from the web to the spider.
Download dangling spider image here.
Solid spiders
These spiders are solid spiders (meaning the whole spider is black and will be raised when using a PIAF machine). These spiders will be used for counting in the first activity, 10 Little Spiders. The first document is one large solid spider and the second document is 10 smaller solid spiders.
Note: There is a white area on the spider’s body that Black Widow spiders have.
Resource
- Download one large solid spider image here
- Download 10 solid spiders images here
10 Little Spiders
This poem can be read or it can be sung to the tune of 10 Little Indians. If singing, do the hand motions (counting with fingers, then two-fingers crawling up the leg). If desired, repeat the song again and change ‘crawling up my leg’ to crawling up different body parts: arm, chin, back, etc.
For students who are learning to use a screen reader, practice various gestures, braille display commands or keyboard commands to read the poem.
Example for the iPad: listed in order is the action, the gesture, the braille display command and then the keyboard command:
- Read All commands: Two finger swipe up (read from the beginning) or two finger swipe down (read from current location). R Chord, VO+B
- Pause: Two finger tap, P Chord, Control key
- Navigate by line: Set the rotor to lines then down swipe, set the rotor to lines then 6 space, down arrow (quick nav on)
If desired, ask the student to pause every time “spider” is announced.
Practice counting to ten. Use plastic spiders or the print the 5 black spiders download and run it through a PIAF or Swell machine to create raise drawings of 10 spiders. Turn the page longways (spiders facing up) so that the spiders are 2 rows of 5, like a 1-frame. As the song is sung, have the student systematically move across the page from tactile spider to spider, counting out loud. If desired, add a braille number beside each spider. (Note: Is it important that students can track items in a row while counting.)
Modification: Cut the spiders apart. While counting, have the student move a spider from the first spider web (pile on the left) to the second spider web (pile on the right).
10 Little Spiders poem/song
One little, two little,
Three little spiders.
Four little, five little,
Six little spiders.
Seven little, eight little,
Nine little spiders.
Ten little spiders crawling up my leg!
Resources
- Download the 10 Little Spiders poem here.
- Download the PIAF-ready 10 solid spiders image here.
I’m a Little Spider poem
Use this poem to practice listening and speed skills (have the screen reader read the poem aloud). Increase the screen reader speaking rate by 5% and read the poem the second time. Increase the speaking rate again by 5% and listen again. Now, decrease the speaking rate by 5%. The student should be able to listen and catch all the words at this speed, even though the speed is 5% faster than the student’s normal speed.
If the student is a braille reader and is working on reading braille, ask the student to read the poem on a braille display with the screen reader muted. Practice reading the poem again, but faster.
I’m a Little Spider poem
I’m a little spider.
Watch me spin.
If you’ll be my dinner.
I’ll let you come in.
Then I’ll spin my web to
hold you tight.
And gooble you up in
One big bite!
Resource
- Download the I’m a Little Spider poem here.
Five Little Spiders
This poem provides a few spider facts. this time, let’s work on rhyming words and memory – specifically remembering what was read. Students will use the rhyming words to prompt their memory. Ask the student to read the poem once (screen reader or read the braille on a refreshable braille display). Ask the student to read line by line. Read the first three lines and stop each time after each “. . .one said.” and ask the student to finish the rhyme. If necessary, you can prompt the first few words of that phrase and leave the last word (the rhyming word) for the student to say. Example: The first three three stanzas are: “There were five little spiders, Sitting on the wall. The first one said,” You read, “We won’t ?” and the student will say “fall”.
Next, ask the student to tell you 3 spider facts from the poem.
- Spiders have 8 legs
- spiders lay eggs
- Spiders are covered in hair
5 Little Spiders poem
There were five little spiders,
Sitting on the wall.
The first one said,
“We won’t fall.”
The second one said,
“We’ve got eight legs.”
The third one said,
“And we lay eggs.”
The fourth one said,
“We’re cover in hair.”
The fifth one said,
“But we don’t care.”
Then flip went the switch,
And on went the lights.
And the five little spiders
Scurried out of sight.
Resource
- Download the 5 Little Spiders poem here.
Resource
- Spider Activities post 1
