Spider and the Fly

Spider and the Fly

The Spider and the Fly went well with 15 students K-5th grades. The interesting aspect of this program was the archaic language of the 1899 poem by Mary Howitt, The Spider and the Fly. A few of the students were frightened by the poem so afterwards I helped them shake off all the creepiness by simply having them shake their hands in the air while saying "Shake it off!" in silly voices. Now it's time for silly story!  Hi Fly Guy by Ted Arnold was the natural choice. I ended our hour up with Thelonius Monster's sky-high fly pie: a revolting rhyme by Judy Sierra while the students ate homemade Shoo- Fly pie. They loved it and I handed out many recipes. 

                                                    

The Crafts

I demonstrated how to draw a spider web at the beginning of the program. Before I read the poem I went over some “old” vocabulary words that are in the poem while they were drawing spider webs on their paper plates. I was surprised with their curiosity and interest to learn “old words” but it really helped their understanding of the cautionary poem as I read it. Then we made a spider and fly using black grapes, raisins and spaghetti. The wings on the fly are flatten golden raisins. 

 Fly Guy

  

Fly Guy's  is made from brown modeling clay. I attached the basic clay shape to small wooden dowels before the program. Each child was given two Mentos for the eyes and wings cut from plastic cups, uncooked spaghetti and a ball of clay for the nose. They drew the pupils with a Sharpie marker. 

A few props and my Shoo Fly pie. The motivation for this program were to use up and give away a surplus of raisins we had in our pantry. Mission accomplished.