Spider Mini-Project

I often hear comments, about my program, that there are so many things happening.  I explain that a challenge for StrongStart facilitators is how to plan for a drop in program?

My centre averages about 30 children a morning which about three fourths are different children everyday.

This makes it a challenge for planning around the interests of the children.  With so many possible interests from so many children, how can I plan an emergent curriculum?

Another challenge may be that the children that are interested in certain activities may not attend at the time the activities are present.

Here's an example:
              
Last week as we were playing with animals that live in trees
one child took a strong interest in a spider in a web in the tree.  I
learned from him that he likes spiders.  His mom told me that he
likes spiders a lot.  The child asked if I had more spiders.  That was
my motivation to plan for this week.

  
At the beginning of the week the children were greeted with a book
and a message on the carpet.
 
They were encourage to help build a spider's web using tape.  Each
day more tape threads were added to the web.  They played with the
different sized spiders moving them around and catching bugs.
    
Another book, with props, was added and we began to sing
             Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Each day at the art table we created webs too.

       We wrapped yarn around styrofoam trays.
       
 
    We used magnet balls and wands to paint a web.
      
 
We printed webs by pressing a web design in to a piece of styrofoam
then painting over it before pressing paper on it to lift off a print.


      
There was black play dough with pipe cleaners and googly eyes to
              create spiders.

      
There was colour matching of spiders to their same coloured mat.

And we learned another song about spiders “There’s a Spider on the Floor”.

I gave each child a spider to use as we sang the song together.

There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.  There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.  There’s a spider on the floor, he came in through the door.  There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.

There’s a spider on my toe, on my toe.  There’s a spider on my toe, on my toe.  There’s a spider on my toe, oh I wish that he would go.  there’s a spider on the go, on the go.

Continue having the spider climb up your body, stopping at different parts to make a rhyme.
 
These are the majority of spider activities that were available to play with this week.  Some will remain for next week.  And yes the child, who showed the strongest interest, did attend one day this week.
      
Tomorrow I’ll share how we tied up this mini project by searching for webs in the woods.