(upbeat guitar music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to our pre-K and T-K learning space.

My name is is Mrs. Lara, can you tell me your name?

Well, I love hearing your name.

Let's see, was this your special letter?

Let me see if I can make it, a big line down, a big line down, and a little line across, oops, it fell down.

Come on, big line, where'd you go?

There we go.

Was that your special letter, a letter A?

Maybe, and if it wasn't, don't worry.

I'll bring up more letters so I can get yours on the board.

Now, today, we're gonna continue learning about spiders.

Let me get my tin frame here and we'll add one more magnet because it's day three of the five days we'll be together this week, learning about spiders.

Now, if you notice, I have a little spider friend on my finger, here he is.

He's gonna help us sing our weekly finger play.

Do you remember the tune?

All right, it goes like this.

♪ 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, but it always tells me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my knee, on my knee ♪ Oh, gee.

♪ Now, the spider's on my nose, on my nose ♪ I froze.

♪ Now, the spider's on my nose, on my nose ♪ I froze.

♪ I keep telling it to go, but it always tells me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my nose, on my nose ♪ I froze.

♪ Now it's moving down to our bellies ♪ Can you find your belly, all right.

♪ There's a spider 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 always tells me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my belly, on my belly ♪ Whoa, nelly.

Now, the spider's on my hair, oh.

♪ There's a spider on my hair, on my hair ♪ Goodness, where?

♪ There's a spider on my hair, on my hair ♪ Goodness, where?

♪ I keep telling it to go, but it always tells me no ♪ ♪ There's a spider on my hair, on my hair ♪ Goodness, where?

Oh, I hope that you practice identifying more body parts with more songs like that.

Put the spider maybe on your ankle, that would be fun.

All right, like I said, we have a lot of learning to do today around spiders, and I think I have a letter that's going to introduce our character for the book we're going to read this week, let's see.

(doorbell chimes) Ooh, Ms. Maria's so good about bringing us our mail.

Here is our letter, and of course, it always starts off with addressing us as "Dear Mrs.

Lara."

Now, remember, to be good, strong readers, you need to know where to start when you read.

This the left and this is the right, so let's sing our song to remember where we start to read.

The tune is "The Wheels on the Bus."

♪ When I read words, I read left to right ♪ ♪ Left to right, left to right ♪ ♪ When I read words, I read left to right ♪ ♪ This'll make me a strong reader ♪ All right, let's read.

"I am a very busy spider," so our character is a spider who is very, very busy.

"Spinning a web is not easy, but I have to catch insects to eat, or I will starve," that's true.

Spiders spin webs and they catch insects that they kind of make into a little insect juice and then (slurps) slurp them right up.

So it sounds like the spider in our story that we're going to read together is spinning a web and is very busy.

I wonder who it's gonna be?

Let me see here in our box what book Ms. Maria left for us.

I think it's a book about our weekly theme, spiders, and if you see right in the front, a big, giant spider, I wonder if the character in our video story looks like this.

Well, let's find out, we're gonna listen and watch the story of "The Very Busy Spider" together, let's watch.

(upbeat music) It's story time.

(upbeat music) (flies buzzing) "The Very Busy Spider," by Eric Carle, retold by Mrs. Lara.

Early one morning, the wind blew a spider across the field.

A thin, silky thread trailed from her body.

The spider landed on a fence post near a farmyard and began to spin a web with her silky thread.

(slow music) (horse neighs) "Neigh, neigh," said the horse, "wanna go for a ride?"

(horse neighs) The spider didn't answer.

She was very busy spinning her web.

(cow moos) "Moo, moo," said the cow, "want to eat some grass?"

(cow moos) The spider didn't answer.

She was very busy spinning her web.

(sheep baas) "Baa, baa," bleated the sheep, "want to run in the meadow?"

(sheep baas) The spider didn't answer.

She was very busy spinning her web.

(goat bleats) "Ma, ma," said the goat, "want to jump on the rocks?"

(goat bleats) The spider didn't answer.

She was very busy spinning her web.

(pig oinks) "Oink, oink," grunted the pig, "want to roll in the mud?"

(pig oinks) The spider didn't answer.

She was very busy spinning her web.

(dog barks) "Woof, woof," barked the dog, "want to chase a cat?"

(cat meows) The spider didn't answer.

She was very busy spinning her web.

(cat meows) "Meow, meow," cried the cat, "want to take a nap?"

(cat meows) The spider didn't answer.

She was very busy spinning her web.

(duck quacks) "Quack, quack," called the duck, "want to go for a swim?"

The spider didn't answer.

She had now finished her web.

(rooster crows) "Cock-a-doodle-doo," crowed the rooster.

"Want to catch a pesky fly?"

And the spider caught the fly in her web, just like that.

(spider slurps) "Hoo, hoo," asked the owl, "who built this beautiful web?"

The spider didn't answer, she had fallen asleep.

It had been a very, very busy day.

The end.

(slow music continues) So what did you think of the story of "The Very Spider"?

It's true, spiders have to work so hard to spin their webs, and when I see them, oh, I always go like this and destroy their work.

I'll have to think twice next time.

All right, so I love sharing stories with you, but our goal here is for you to be able to read, just like I do to you.

So we have to practice some foundational skills.

Now, one of the most important things that you can do when you're reading is understand and be able to retell the book you just read, remember.

♪ When I retell a book to a teacher or a friend ♪ ♪ I tell the beginning and the middle and the end ♪ ♪ First, next, last are the words that help me out ♪ ♪ When I retell a book ♪ ♪ I tell when it's about ♪ And that's what we're gonna do in our foundational skill today.

Now, the story, "The Very Busy Spider," had a lot of characters, didn't it?

It had 10 characters, let's count to make sure I remember to include all of them.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

10 characters, but when I put them on my board, they all got moved around.

So I need you to help me figure out which one came first, second, third, and so on.

Do you think you can help me?

All right, let's see if we remember.

In the first part of the story, there was an animal that asked the very busy spider to go on a ride, and that animal said, "Neigh."

What animal was it?

A horse, that's right, that was our first animal.

So I'm gonna reach over, grab the horse, and put it on the number one because one means first.

Now, there was a second animal.

Hmm, do you remember?

I'll give you a clue, the animal is black and white and says, "Moo," what animal was it?

It's a cow, that's right.

That was the second character, so let's add them to the number two.

Number two means second here.

So now we have the horse and the cow that are trying to get the busy spider to go along with them, but did the spider answer?

No, she was too busy.

So then we need the third character.

Let's see, this animal is very fluffy and it says, "Baa, baa."

It's a sheep, that's right, and here is our sheep.

We're gonna put it on the number three because number three means third.

So now we're gonna look for the fourth animal in the story.

I want you to think, number four was kind of brown and had horns, and its special letter is G, which makes the "guh" sound.

It's a goat, that's right.

Now, I want you to think, did the spider go with the goat?

No, the spider said, "I'm too busy."

Actually, did the spider even answer in the book?

She did not, very rude, even when you're busy, you should always answer, don't you agree?

All right, now the fifth one is one that is very intelligent, one of the smartest animals in the whole animal kingdom, and it's pink, and it's true, gives us bacon.

It says, "Oink, oink," it's a pig, that's right.

That's the fifth animal, which is the number five in our order.

Now, the sixth animal is one that you may have at home.

It's a family pet sometimes, its special letter is D, which makes the "duh" sound, it's a dog.

What do dogs say?

That's right, "Woof, woof."

Now we have a horse, a cow, a sheep, a goat, a pig, and a dog.

But the spider was too busy spinning her web, so more characters tried to get her to come along.

Let's see, number seven is also a pet, and it makes this sound, "Meow."

It's a cat, do any of you have a cat?

I have a dog, but I do not have a cat.

And the next one you might see in a pond, it waddles like this, it's a, "Quack, quack," duck.

Here's the number eight, we're getting close to the end.

All of these characters trying to get the spider to come along, and no luck.

The ninth animal is one that says, "Cock-a-doodle-doo."

It's the rooster, that's right, here we are.

And the last one, of course, is the owl, and the owl said, "Hoo, who spun that web?"

(laughs) Look at all our characters, the horse, the cow, the sheep, the goat, the pig, the dog, cat, duck, rooster, and owl, and still, the spider kept spinning her web.

Now we're gonna move over to the project place because we're gonna spin a web of our own.

So let's go over there.

All right, let's see, I'm gonna show you here what materials you're going to need.

So for this activity, which is gonna look like this at the very end, we're going to need a paper plate, a marker if you'd like, a hole punch, now, mine is smaller, yours might look a little differently.

We're going to need a toothpick, some tape, and some scissors.

Now, the toothpick and tape are optional, and last one, yarn, okay?

So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to cut a hole in the middle of our paper plate so that you can see our yarn or our web.

Now, to make this yarn or web, what I did was label different letters all the way around the plate, and then hole punch right underneath the letters, and then we're gonna put them in order.

Now, you're thinking, "Mrs. Lara, I already know my letters.

I don't need to practice those."

You can do this with anything, you can use site words, you can move to letter sounds, numbers, really, anything that you'd like to learn to identify, but we're gonna do letters today.

So here is our paper plate.

Now, what we need to do, you might have a grownup help you with this part, is cut out the middle.

Now, what I did is I drew a big circle here, so you can see where I'm cutting, but you don't need to draw the circle because the paper plate usually has a circle there that you can just follow.

So let me cut all the way around.

Of course, I'm using my helper hand to help guide me as I cut all the way around.

Now, did you know that not all spiders spin webs?

Some of them actually jump out and eat their prey, so they can be hiding in rocks or different things.

Kind of scary, actually, to think about.

And there's different kinds of webs, we're actually gonna learn about that tomorrow.

There's even a triangle web spider, it'd be interesting to see, huh?

So here is our hole that we cut out.

The next thing we're going to do is we're going to label our paper plate, so of course, I'm going to use the letters.

So I'm gonna draw letters all the way around, and for this, I think I'm going to use my name.

So I'm gonna do Mrs... hold on, though, maybe I'll use letters.

I'll show you letters, but you can do your name, too.

So I'm gonna do A.

And then what do you think would happen if I drew the A here and the B here and the C, all the way around?

My web would just be one big circle, right?

I want my yarn to go across, so I'm gonna draw my letters across from each other.

So if I drew an A here, I'm gonna draw a B here.

Then I'm gonna do a C over here, a D over here.

Do you see how I'm making them across from each other?

And then an E, F, you know what letter comes next?

G, and so on, until we're all done here.

H, I, make sure you don't put your letters too close together.

This was something that I did earlier, and then I had to kind of squeeze in my letters, which is no fun.

Try to leave room for all of them, M, N, O, P. Now, do you know when I tell you a special letter, special letter means the letter of your name.

We all have a special letter, and when you're in preschool and T-K, it's usually the first letter that you learn, W, E, W, almost there, X, Y, and Z.

See, told you, had to squeeze in the Z, always the last one, here it is, okay?

Next thing you're gonna do is you're gonna take a hole punch, here's mine, and you're gonna poke a hole right underneath the letter.

I'm gonna do that all the way around, and honestly, this is my favorite part.

For any of my teacher friends watching, what I would do is I would prepare this already with the letters and the hole punch or whatever skill that you're working on, and I would actually take two days to finish this project.

I might focus on letter sounds and show pictures of the different things that I want to find, so you don't have to go in alphabetical order.

I might show a picture of a cat and have the students identify what the beginning sound is, and they can lead from there.

But like I said, it takes a little while, but it's activating a lot of modalities, not just the visual aspect of learning, but the kinesthetic, as well, by having to weave the actual web.

Okay, here are my holes.

Now I'm gonna show you a tip for how to make a needle.

That's right, a needle for this activity because sometimes when you use the yarn, it can get kind of frayed at the end.

Frayed means it kind of goes all over the place.

So I use a toothpick to act as my needle, and a little piece of tape.

And then I just kind of tape my toothpick, like this, to the needle, and that creates a wonderful, easy thing that I can use for poking my yarn through each of the holes.

Otherwise, you can just kind of tape up the end of the yarn, that does work, as well, but I found that the toothpick method works just a little bit better.

Now, this is another important part.

How long do you make your yarn?

So you can actually use kind of yourself as a measure, so you can make the yarn as tall as you are, or just grab quite a bit 'cause you are gonna need quite a bit.

And if you run out, you can always, always add more by tying it.

All right, we're gonna start by tying our yarn up, so we're gonna do it right here, and I'm just gonna tie it like this to one of our holes, and this will keep our yarn in place as we're weaving our web.

Take the excess off.

Okay, here's my needle, here comes the fun part.

Now you get to weave your web in order, so you can poke it through the hole, push all the yarn through, there's A.

Now I have to find B, here it is.

B, and I'll show you just a few letters so you get the idea.

Now, one thing that can happen, and it's happened to me, is you have to kind of remember if you go over the hole, like this, or under it.

So I've decided to go over and under, so one I do over, and one I do under.

Otherwise, you can get a little tangled up in there.

There's C, there's D. Let's see how many letters we can get to before it's time to say goodbye.

All right, now I have to find E. No, did I forget E?

Here it is, (laughs) all right, and we're gonna weave it through, and you can kind of see how it's starting to form a web, F. Now, I'm going pretty fast for you here, but like I said, in the classroom, this takes quite a while because there's a lot of excess yarn, so the kids get tangled in it, and you really want to take your time.

And if you're at home, you might take you a little while, too, G and H. All right, I think we'll end with J, so we'll do I and then J left.

H, I, last one, J, and then I'll show you the finished product, I and J.

Okay, well, here's what it's looking like so far, do you see my web?

And this is what it'll end up looking like once you go through all your letters or whatever skill you're going to identify.

I put a little spider in mine so it really looks like a web.

I hope that you get to try this at home.

Now, I want to do a few book recommendations before we say goodbye.

I have this book by Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries, called "Are You a Spider?"

Are you a spider, but how do you know you're not a spider?

This book explains it.

It talks about all the things that spiders do and are that make them different from humans and insects.

So make sure you check this one out on the Sora app or your local library.

And then do you remember Anansi?

On Monday we read the story of Anansi, the traditional South African folk tale.

Well, this is "Anansi the Impossible."

It's another retelling of that story with a few new characters and a few new things that Anansi does, so I hope that you try this one, as well.

Okay, looks like it's about time to say goodbye.

We'll quickly run through our letters, and then I'll give you my big smooch to end the day, ready?

A, B, C you later, D, E, F. ♪ G, I'm gonna miss you, H, I ♪ ♪ Have to go now, J, K, bye-bye now ♪ L, M, N, O.

♪ I had a good time ♪ P, Q.

♪ R you gonna miss me ♪ ♪ S, T, U are my best friend ♪ ♪ V, W, X, Y, Z ♪ And Z means that I'll Z you tomorrow, where we have more fun planned and learning around spiders.

So I'll see you then, boys and girls.

(blows kiss) A smooch and a goodbye.

(upbeat guitar music)