(upbeat music begins) - Hello little learners, welcome back to another fun week of learning here in our Pre-K and TK classroom.

My name is Mrs. Lara and I'd love to hear your name.

Oh, I'm so excited that you're here with me today.

Let me grab my 10 frame and we'll put a magnet for day one of the five days that we're going to be together this week.

Can you guess what we're going to be learning about?

Check out my hair.

That's right, spiders!

We're gonna learn about arachnids this week, I'm so excited.

What's that?

You're scared of spiders?

No we're gonna find out that they're actually great for our environment.

They kill nasty bugs that bite us and do all sorts of things.

So stick with me this week and we'll learn all about our spider friends.

Now of course you know, I have a little spider song to get us started with our day.

So, I have a spider toy that's gonna help me.

But if you don't have a spider toy with you, you can use your hands like this and that can be your spider.

Our spider's going to travel to different parts of our body.

Are you ready?

Let's sing our song.

♪ There's a spider on my knee ♪ ♪ On my knee, oh gee ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my knee ♪ ♪ On my knee, oh gee.

♪ ♪ I keep telling it to go ♪ ♪ and it always tells me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my knee ♪ ♪ On my knee, oh gee ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my nose ♪ ♪ On my nose, I froze ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my nose ♪ ♪ On my nose, I froze ♪ ♪ I keep telling it to go ♪ ♪ And it keeps telling me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my nose ♪ ♪ On my nose, I froze ♪ ♪ Now the spiders on my belly ♪ ♪ On my belly, whoa Nelly ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my belly ♪ ♪ On my belly, whoa Nelly ♪ ♪ I keep telling it to go ♪ ♪ But it keeps telling me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my belly ♪ ♪ On my belly, whoa Nelly ♪ ♪ Now the spiders in my hair ♪ ♪ In my hair, goodness where ♪ ♪ There's a spider in my hair ♪ ♪ In my hair, goodness where ♪ ♪ I keep telling it to go ♪ ♪ But it keeps telling me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider in my hair ♪ ♪ In my hair, goodness where?

♪ And there really is a spider on my hair today, isn't there?

I hope that you enjoyed that song, we're gonna be singing it all week.

So if you didn't know the words you'll know them by Friday.

I think now it's time for (doorbell rings) Ms. Maria's mail.

Let's see what letter we got today.

Now you'll remember when we read words to be nice strong readers, we start on the left and slide to the right.

Let's sing our old song.

♪ This is the left.

(snap, snap) ♪ ♪ This is the right.

(snap, snap) ♪ ♪ When we read we start at the left ♪ ♪ And slide to the right.

(snap, snap) ♪ Let's see it says, "Dear Mrs. Lara.

I am trying to love spiders."

I know it's kind of hard.

"I really, really am.

It is just that they crawl really fast and are sometimes fuzzy."

That's true the spiders can crawl really, really fast and are sometimes fuzzy.

"Did I also hear that they bite?

Eeek!"

It's true, some spiders do bite and don't be scared, but some spiders are venomous.

That means they inject poison into you when they bite.

Oh no, but I'm telling you there are still some spiders that are good and do a lot of good things for us.

Now I think Ms. Maria left a book in here for us that's gonna help us learn to love spiders.

The name of the book is "I'm Trying to Love Spiders."

And it's full of amazing arachnid facts.

Now I know the title or its name because it's in nice big letters here in the front of the book.

I'm gonna look at the spine of the book, which holds the pages together.

And this is the back of the book that gives us some more facts about what the book is about.

Now this is a book I picked up at my library.

So if you want to check it out I'll be turning it back in so that you can have a turn too.

This book was written and illustrated by Bethany Barton.

That means that she wrote the words and drew the pictures.

So let's read the story.

I'm trying to love spiders and it isn't easy.

I keep telling myself spiders are cool I want to love them.

Look at there's the spider with the little sunglasses on and little hearts that says me plus spiders forever.

(chuckles) I mean, spiders have been around for millions of years.

Moving silently, swinging into action.

I want to think of them bug ninjas.

Hi-ya!

What do you think?

Do you think they're bug ninjas?

And look there's a spider and a dinosaur here.

Like this spider right here, I'm gonna try to really, really hard.

I'm gonna try to like him.

Maybe if I study him for awhile.

So look they're using a magnifying glass to look at the spider.

What do you think?

I think it's working.

(screams) It's moving squish it, squish it, squish it.

(pshhh) I don't think it worked.

Yep.

That didn't work out, but next time will be better.

So there's what's left of the spider, oh no.

Next time I'll focus on all the cool super powers spiders have.

Like they have eight eyes.

Let's count them.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

What would you look like if you had eight eyes?

Oh extreme close up of the spider's eyes.

And spiderwebs, spiderwebs are so cool.

Spiders spin webs out of a protein packed super silk they make themselves.

That's like you or me building a house with our hair, and then catching food on it.

So, if you see the pictures there's a house made of hair and they caught pizza in it.

I think that's what I would catch in my hair house, if I was like a spider.

What food would you catch?

Some spiders even have billions of tiny hairs on their legs that let them stick on walls or ceilings or...

There's a spider right there.

Oh my gosh, there's a spider stuck on there!

Smash it, squish it get it right now!

(pshhh) She's not doing a very good job of liking spiders.

We're not very good at using spiders and loving them just yet.

Look at there's the spider, oh no.

If only spiders were more like things I really love like burritos and soccer and rocket ships.

All of them have eight legs just like a spider.

Instead, their closest relatives are also totally gross.

Yuck!

The arachnid family reunion.

Look they're all getting together.

There's a scorpion and a tick, but it's not like I'm scared of every icky thing.

It's just something about spiders.

Maybe it's fact that almost all spiders are venomous.

Spiders can't chew very well either, much like your baby sister.

They need liquid foods.

Since no one's invented a tiny spider size blender, spiders rely on their venom to dissolve their dinners, making bugs soft and slurp-able.

(slurping sound) I've always wanted to be a smoothie.

I don't think that's what the fly is really saying.

(laughs) But to be fair, while there are about 40,000 known species of spider, only a few can bite humans and even fewer can harm you with their venom.

So just a small portion or a little piece of those spiders can actually hurt us.

Oh look at, there's a wanted poster.

It says, wanted dead or smashed a lot.

Red hour glass on underbelly spider, violin shaped marking on its back spider.

Female black widow, brown recluse.

For being poisonous enough to ruin our day.

Fatal spider bites are so rare, you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.

Oh my gosh, okay don't panic.

But there's a definitely a spider over there.

What are we going to do?

Do you think we're gonna smash it?

And we're not gonna squish it this time, right?

Well just try to pet him, maybe?

Can you pet spiders?

Let's try, okay.

Pet spider here.

Oh!

Let's see if she squished it.

Whoops, nope we squished him.

Can't pet a spider.

Oh no, I'm never ever gonna love spiders at this rate.

Maybe I should focus on what spiders are good at.

Like eating bugs!

That's gotta be helpful, right?

A single spider can eat over 75 pounds of bugs in a year.

So, here's 75 pounds of bugs and here's a 75 pound dog, so you can compare.

I even heard that some farmers use spiders to keep harmful insects out of their crops.

So there's a spider oh, like the scarecrow we made last week except it's a spider scarecrow, keeping the bugs away.

And oh wait looks like some of those bugs made it over here.

Get out of here bugs!

I can't even read my book with all these bugs.

Hey, what's that spider doing?

What is that spider doing with all those bugs?

Oh, it spun it's web and the bugs are caught in there.

Wow, thanks little guy.

That was really impressive.

And look, it says here spider presents for you.

A box of flies and little fly swatter wrapped in a bow.

(chuckles) Aw, the spider says, did you make that for me?

Look, it says I think I might finally love.. Ah!

A cockroach!

Squish it, smash it make it go away!

(squish sound) Squished.

Well, one thing at a time.

So what did you think?

Did you like that story?

Do you feel better about our spider friends?

(chuckles) Well, I do after reading what they do for insects because I really don't like insects.

So I'm gonna put this book down and remember I love to read you books, but of course my goal is for you to read me books one day.

We're gonna work on a foundational skill today.

We're actually going to work on our identifying, our beginning sounds.

And our letter is the letter "S".

Do you remember what sound the letter "S" makes?

Sounds like a snake, it goes sss like that.

So I have some shoes that are going to smash our spiders, that don't have something with the letter S on them.

And I have our hearts where we're going to love our spiders if they have something that starts with the sss sound.

Because remember, ♪ The S says sss, the S says sss ♪ ♪ Every letter makes a sound ♪ ♪ The S says sss.

♪ So let's look at our first one.

Oh, I feel bad for those spiders I'm gonna smash.

But let's see, ladybug.

Does ladybug sound like sss at the beginning?

Ladybug, sss.

No, that would be Sady-bug.

Sorry, you're gonna get the shoe.

Or as my grandma would say the chancla.

(chuckles) (pshhh) Smash that spider.

How about this one it's a soccer ball.

Does it say sss at the beginning?

Let's say sss soccer ball.

It does.

Okay, I love the spider you get a little heart.

How about this one sock, sock?

Yes, that's a sss at the beginning.

I'm trying to think of spiders having eight legs.

How many socks would they need then?

Spiders and socks that's a funny thought.

Let's see how about this one?

Sun, does sun sound like sss at the beginning?

Sss sun it does.

That's right.

Oh, I love giving out hearts.

Okay.

Let's look at this one.

A web.

That's what spiders spin.

Right?

They spin webs to catch their bugs or insects.

Web.

Does a web sound like sss at the beginning?

Web?

No, that would be seb.

Okay.

The shoe here it comes.

(pshhh) Smash.

How about this?

Eye, eye, do you remember how many eyes a spider has?

Eight, that's right.

Eye, does it sound like sss at the beginning?

No.

Another one.

We get to smash.

(pshhh) Let's do a few more.

How about smile?

Smile.

Does that sound like sss at the beginning?

It does.

Smile.

Do you smile when you see a spider?

(chuckles) I don't know that I would either.

All right.

Let's see another one.

How about this feeling?

Hard to tell, but it's scared.

Scared.

Scared is a feeling you feel in your whole body.

It might tense up and you might even sweat.

Do you feel scared when you see a spider?

Me too.

Now let's think about the beginning sound scared.

Does it say sss at the beginning?

It does.

Okay.

Let me get it over here.

All right let's do one more.

How about that bottom one?

It has a nose on there, what does our nose do?

It smells, so smell.

Does it say sss at the beginning?

Yes, it does smell.

Okay.

Now do spiders smell?

Do they have a nose?

Can you research that and let me know, please?

All right it looks like we found a lot of words that start with the sss sound, which is the sound that the letter S makes.

Right now we're gonna move on to our project because I have a fun activity that involves paint and spider webs.

So, let's walk on over there.

Okay.

Let's see.

So I thought it would be really, really fun to make some spider web art.

And if we have time, we'll make a symmetrical spider.

So lots of S words there.

For this activity, you're going to need a tray.

If you don't have one like I do, a plastic tray, you can use a baking dish or a box, or really anything you have that has a little lip around where it'll catch the materials that we're going to be using.

You're going to need a piece of paper, as well.

I'm going to use both white and black paper for this activity, some paint, I have white and black paint that I'm going to use, a little cup and the fun part, a ball or a marble.

This is what we're going to use to roll our paint around with.

And of course, if you don't want to get messy, you'll need a spoon to put the ball in.

Okay, so I'm going to start with my white piece of paper in my tray.

And then I think I'm going to use some black paint here.

See, I have a little cup here, with my ball.

I'm going to pour in some paint, now you're thinking, Mrs. Lara, what are you doing?

Ball and a paint and a spoon are we eating paint?

What's happening?

No, we're actually going to make, what's called marble art.

I'll show you in just a minute.

So you're going to want to get paint all over your ball, whatever round thing that rolls that you are using that is okay to use with your parents, and then I'm going to take my spoon and scoop it out right on the paper.

Ready?

Sploosh, okay.

Now the fun part, we get to roll it around.

And as we roll, it's going to leave a mark and it's going to look like spiderwebs.

Ooh, what if I roll it around in circles?

Here it goes.

(chuckles) Roll it around and around.

Of course you can use any color paint that you want, but white and black, I feel looks a little more realistic.

I'll show you what it looks like with black paper and white paint.

Super cool too.

Okay, so here is what it's looking like.

I'm just going to take my spoon and scoop it out and put it back in and I'll show you.

Here's my spider webs so far.

What do you think?

We're going to add a spider to it in just a minute, but I want to show you what it looks like with black paper on white paint, because that has a really neat effect too.

So, I'm to take my black piece of paper and put it on my same tray and use my same ball.

Except this time I'm gonna use some white paint.

Mix it all up like this.

And then I'm gonna sploosh it down.

For this one I'm going to do it on the side and here we go.

Take it for a little spin.

Here it goes, bonus if you can get it to go around and around like this, because then it really looks like a spiderweb.

And you can do lines across.

Have you ever observed a spiderweb closeup?

It's actually really beautiful.

Takes a lot of work for them to make it.

I try not to be so careless with destroying them when I see them.

Okay.

I'll show you what they look like here.

So here's what the black paper with white paint looks like, if you wanted to try that.

So that's one way and here's another.

All right, now, since we have a little bit of time, I want to show you how to make a symmetry spider.

So for this, you're going to need a white piece of paper and black and white paint.

So in all of the materials that you already have.

Now, symmetry is a fancy word that means the same on both sides.

So in order to make our symmetry spider, we need to fold our paper like this, and that's going to create two sides.

So we're creasing the paper, that means creating a fold like this.

And I'm using my nails to get that crease kind of really in there.

See two sides, one, two.

Now we're going to actually add paint to one side of the paper, because then we're going to smush it all together and then we're going to get a spider.

So just one side, pick your favorite.

For me, it's this one.

And you can use a paintbrush, but I have actually found that using dobs of paint works really well.

I'm just going to create dobs of paint.

I'm going to make, I'll show you my design in just a minute.

Now you don't want to add too much paint, because then it'll seep out through the sides.

That means it'll flow out through the sides.

So here's what my black paint is looking like.

You can do any design that you'd like.

Now I'm going to add some white paint and this is going to be our eyes.

Do you remember how many eyes the spiders have?

Eight.

That's right.

We're going to do 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now, why did I not do eight?

Do you remember?

Because we're going to smush it.

It's going to be the same on that side.

So if we take four plus four, it's the same as eight.

All right now comes the fun part, we're going to smush it down.

Okay and you take it and kind of smush it.

You never know what you're going to get with this.

Our eyes might be smashed into the black.

We'll see.

It comes out differently every time.

And actually that's what I like about it.

Okay.

So we're going to open it up.

It's like a surprise.

Ooh, look at that for a spider.

What do you think?

Our eyes really didn't stay eyes did they?

But you can add eyes later if it bothers you.

I have some eyes in my hair that I got at the place where everything is a dollar, you can add.

So once this is dry, what you're going to do, is you're going to cut it out all around, just like that.

And then you're going to add it to your spider web and it makes a really cool effect.

That's a really nice thing to hang around October, which is the month we're in, because it's known as the spooky month.

What do you think?

Do you like this activity?

I hope that you try it.

Now, before we go, I wanted to leave you with a few book recommendations.

The first one is this one is this one, it's a non-fiction book.

That means it has true facts about spiders and it's by Creepy Critters.

It has nice big pictures of spiders, I'll show you some of them.

And it has spider facts inside.

Look at this, look at those beautiful pictures of spiders.

In the first page, it talks about how spiders are not insects, that they're actually arachnids.

We'll do one more page and then I'll show you my next book that I want to recommend.

It says all insects have six legs.

You might think that's great, but a spider has eight.

Look at that.

Look at all the spider legs here, eight.

So I really encourage you to check this book out, if you find it on the SOAR app or in your library.

And then if you really want to get into spiders, this one's called "Silk and Venom", and it's a little bit more advanced.

But it has beautiful pictures of real spiders and the webs that they spin.

Look at that, and where they live.

So you can have a grownup talk to you about it and the kinds of insects that they eat, poor insect.

(chuckles) So check this one out too.

All right boys and girls, looks like we have just enough time to say goodbye, and I'll tell you what we're going to do tomorrow.

So tomorrow we have another book that I'm so excited to share with you.

It's called "Anansi, The Spider", and it's actually based on an African folk tale and it has beautiful, colorful pictures.

So if you think that spiders can't be heroes, I think tomorrow's book is going to change your mind.

So make sure you come back tomorrow so we can do some more reading and have more fun together.

Until then, Mrs.Lara is going to send you a big squeeze and a big smooch (mwah) and remind you to read, to play, use your five senses, think like a scientist, every single day.

We'll see you tomorrow, boys and girls.

(upbeat music plays)