Spiders!

This is the perfect time of year for creepy crawly spiders! Just this morning I had a pretty BIG one in my music room while a class of  kindergarteners were there.. oh my! They saw it and pointed it out then of course wanted me to rescue it and send it out the door. Thankfully I have a door leading to an outside area and so we rescued a spider today in music class. The kids were so proud of themselves! If you haven't seen this post about my Creepy Crawly Spiders song, check it out. Very accessible for first graders and kindies. My first graders study bats and spiders and with Halloween just around the corner this is the perfect time to bring out all the bats and spiders songs.
The Spider Kept on Spinning song from Lynn Kleiners Jungle Book pairs beautifully with the book, The Very Busy Spider.

Create quarter and eighth note rhythms with spider, pumpkin, and bat cut outs- Dollar Tree and Wal Mart often have the foam ones this time of year - perfect for creating 4 and 8 beat rhythms as B sections to go with "Trick or Treat, I'm so sweet, may I have something good to eat".  (My nicer version of the trick or treat song). 

My kiddos a couple years ago with foam pumpkins and ghost cut outs playing a game. See the full post here. 

I also like to do movement activities around spiders and my students are always fascinated by this video:

After some purposeful and creative movement exploration around the ideas of spiders spinning, waiting, eating, and hopping, we need some quiet body time, and turn our hands into spiders to sing, "Spider on the Floor".  Artie Almeida has wonderful verses to go with this and a visual - free, here.  The last verse, is of course, pure Artie, with the spider on the tush afraid of being smushed. The kids love it. We practice with hands first, moving it from floor to leg to thigh, etc., then I pass out plastic spider rings they get to take home (BIG HIT!!) and we sing again and they get very creative about how to put the spider on their body part - the rule is they can't touch the spider or the body part. It really makes them work on movement and balance and stillness.  

Hope you enjoy some of these!  Do you have a favorite spider tune?