By Angela Howard
Westwind Elementary Kindergarten teacher, Kim Ivie, found a way to incorporate real-life into her kindergarten lesson over spiders and their characteristics when she saw a Texas Brown Tarantula at a Frenship Football game one Friday night.
Mrs. Ivie decided to bring the tarantula back to class so that her students could see what a live tarantula looks like and study its behaviors.
Students have been learning what spiders are, what they can do, and what characteristics they have. They have been studying and labeling spider body parts as a part of their lesson.
The students have learned that spiders are not insects. When asked about spiders and tarantulas, the students said the following:
- “They can crawl.”
- “They lay their babies in an egg sac, and we can’t touch it.”
- “They are really cool, and I would like to have a tarantula as a pet.”
- “They are awesome. This is the first time I’ve seen a real one.”
- “They only eat one cricket a week.”
- “This is a Texas Brown tarantula.”
- “Tarantulas can jump.”
Having the tarantula as a special guest in their classroom made learning about this topic even more exciting.