(energetic music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to another fun day of learning here in our pre-K and TK classroom.

I'm your teacher today, Mrs. Lara, can you tell me your name?

I'm so excited that you're here, especially if you like spiders.

We're learning all about spiders this week.

Can you tell there's a spider in my hair?

And later the spider's going to travel to different places for our song.

But first I'm going to grab my 10 frame and add another magnet because today is day two of the five days that we're going to be studying spiders together.

See one, two only three days left.

So let's sing our spider song together to get our day started, and then we have a lots of fun books to share.

So remember if you don't have a spider, like I do, you can use your hands and make your hand your spider.

Oh no, there's a spider.

Okay, ready?

The song 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 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, but 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 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 keeps telling me no.

There's a spider on my hair or my hair.

Goodness, where?

All right.

So I hope that you enjoyed that song.

And remember the spider can help you learn the different parts of your body so you can experiment with putting it on your elbows on your shoulders, on your ankles.

All right.

Let's put our spider down for now.

And I think it's time to read Mrs. Maria's letter.

Here we go.

Now, remember to be strong readers, we need to learn the basics, which is tracking.

So we start on the left and slide to the right.

This is the left.

This is the right.

When we read, we start the left and slide to the right.

Okay, let's read.

Dear, Mrs. Lara.

Okay, I get it.

Some spiders are not that scary.

What do you think are some spiders not that scary?

Ooh, I don't know.

They can even be helpful.

That's true, in our book yesterday, we learned that they eat about 76 pounds of insects per year.

Ooh.

Do you have any books where the main character is a spider?

Love a friend.

So the main character is who the book is about.

And I actually think Mrs. Maria left me a book here in our mail that has a main character that's a spider.

This book is called Anansi the Spider, a tale from the Ashanti.

Now you'll notice that this spider looks a little bit different.

This tail is actually a folk tale.

A folk tale is a story that's been passed down from person to person from a long time ago.

And sometimes it's not even written down.

Now, before we watch our video story, I want to show you where the story is from this folk tale.

It's actually from a place in Africa, right here is a map.

Called Ghana, right there.

And if you want to learn more about it, you can check out books about Africa at your local library.

But right now I want us to learn the story of Anansi, the spider, the tale from Ashanti.

So let's watch our video story together.

It's storytime.

Anansi the spider, a tale from the Ashanti.

Adapted and illustrated by Gerald McDermott, and retold by Mrs. Laura.

Anansi, he is spider to the Ashanti people in Ashanti land.

People love the story of Kwaku, Anansi.

Time was, Anansi had six sons.

First son was called See Trouble.

He had the gift of seeing trouble a long way off.

Second son was Road Builder.

Thirsty son was River Drinker.

Next son was Game Skinner.

Another son was Stone Thrower.

And last of sons was Cushion, he was very soft.

All were good sons of Anansi.

One time Anansi went a long way from home.

He got lost, he fell into trouble.

Back home was son, See Trouble.

"Father is in danger!".

he cried.

He knew it quickly.

And he told those other sons.

Road Builders son said, "Follow me!".

Off he went making a road.

They went fast those six brothers gone to help Anansi.

Where is father now?

Fish has swallowed him Anansi is inside fish.

River Drinker took a big drink, no more river.

Then Game Skinner helped father and Anansi.

He split open fish.

More trouble came right then.

Falcon took Anansi up in the sky.

"Quick now, Stone Thrower!".

The stone hit Falcon, Anansi fell through the sky.

Now Cushion ran to help father.

Very soft Anansi, came down.

All home again that night.

Kwaku Anansi found a thing in the forest.

what is this, a great globe of light?

O mysterious and beautiful.

I shall give this to my son, said Anansi.

To the son who rescued me, but which son of six, which deserves the prize?

Nyame, can you help me?

O'Nyame, called Anansi.

For Ashanti people Nyame is The God of All Things.

Anansi asked this of Nyame, please hold the beautiful globe of light until I know which son should have it for his own.

And so they tried to decide which son deserved the prize.

They tried, but they could not decide.

They argued all night.

Nyame saw this.

The God of all things, he took the beautiful white light into the sky.

He keeps it there for all to see it is still there.

It will always be there.

It is there tonight.

And that is the tale of Anansi, the spider.

So what did you think of the story of Anansi The spider?

I wanted to show you my favorite part of the book.

My favorite part was when Anansi the spider, was almost eaten up by Falcon.

And then one of his sons, Stone Thrower, threw the stone right at the Falcon and dropped Anansi.

And then Cushion, another son was able to help him not fall so hard.

So I hope that you check out this book.

It's worth reading more than once.

All right.

Let's move over to our foundational skill, which is retelling the story today.

So I'm going to leave my book here so that we can use it in case we have any questions.

Now you'll remember retelling the story is using pictures or words to tell what the story is about.

So I have my little picture of Anansi here.

Since he's the main character of the story, we're going to walk through what happened with Anansi throughout the story.

So you'll remember Anansi was a spider and he had some sons, right?

He had six sons and each of those sons had a different gift.

So let's count how many sons are here.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

All right.

And then one day Anansi decided that he's going to go for a walk up the hill.

And he was having a great time until something happened.

Something ate Anansi all up.

Do you remember what it was?

It swims in the ocean.

That's right, a large fish, ate Anansi.

That was the first time that he got in trouble in the story.

And he was right inside there.

What was Anansi going to do?

That's right.

He called one of his sons and his son came over and gutted the fish.

That means to cut the fish open so Anansi could get out.

So as he was walking, there's more trouble, oh no.

Then see the second time that Anansi got in trouble, was when the Falcon came in and swooped down and picked Anansi up, oh no.

And the Falcon was about to get away with Anansi.

When his son Stone Thrower threw a stone right at the Falcon and hit him so that Anansi fell, fell, fell from the sky.

But if he falls and hits the ground from that high up, what'll happen?

Splat.

Luckily he had another son that was like a cushion, very soft.

So Anansi fell on his son.

But then he had a decision to make.

He said, my sons are so good.

I have six sons.

I want one of them to have the special, bright thing that I found here by the hill.

But who is he going to give it to?

Remember, all of his sons helped.

Oh, no.

So he called out to the God of all things, witch in Ashanti is Nyami.

And he said, please help me.

Who am I going to give this to?

And they argued and argued and they couldn't decide.

So, Nyami, The God of All Things took that bright orb and put it way up in the sky.

And it's there every night and might be there tonight too.

Will you find out?

Take a look when you go outside and go look at the night sky and see if you see the bright orb, and remember the story of Ashanti, the spider.

So thank you for helping me retell the story.

Now we're going to move over to our project place.

We're actually going to make an Ashanti hat.

We're going to make an, Anansi hat like a spider dressed kind of in the style of our text right here.

So let me bring it over to our project place.

All right.

So let's take a look at our spider here.

Anansi, the spider.

Do you notice that it has different shapes?

So let's see it has a triangle mouth, and kind of a triangle body, and maybe a rectangle head, and some circle eyes and triangle eyebrows.

And it has eight legs.

Just like all spiders do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

So I thought it would be really fun for you to make a hat that you can wear, just like the spider on my head.

That'll remind you of the story.

So for this project, you're going to need some black paper.

And actually I bought the extra long paper, but if you don't have that, you can use whatever paper you have and just glue it or tape it or staple it together to make a really long piece.

And you're going to need other scraps of paper that you may have.

So I have some really bright pieces of paper here, just like our story.

So it kind of matches.

You're also going to need some glue or you can use a glue stick as well.

If you don't have this kind of glue and some scissors.

And of course a stapler almost forgot that.

So to make our hats, the first thing we need to do is we're going to take a long piece of black paper like this, and we're actually going to measure the circumference of our head.

Now I know what you're thinking.

Circumference, what's that?

It's the measurement of all the way around your head like this, because you're going to want your hat to sit on that.

Now because Mrs. Lara's head's a little large because I'm a grownup I might need two pieces of paper like this.

To kind of make it fit.

So I'm going to staple them together.

You probably won't need two long pieces.

I think you would just need one because your head is still growing.

So look at how my long piece of paper then what you're going to do is you're going to take it and kind of figure out where do you want your hat to be?

So I want the staple side, on the side there and kind of measure around.

You can make a little mark where it kind of lands.

I can put my finger there and know, so then cut off all the parts that you're not going to need.

So this is going to be our hat piece.

So the next part is we're actually going to create Anansi.

So if you'll notice in the text, he has a black head kind of like a triangle shape.

So don't waste paper.

You can actually use what was left of your hat to create the head.

Here we go.

A rectangle shape is like this.

It has two sides that are a little shorter and two sides that are longer.

All right.

And we're going to glue it on.

So let's glue it on, we'll glue it on this side.

Here we go.

Open up my glue.

And I want you to start thinking about a body.

What shape shall we make the body?

In our text the body is a large triangle shape.

So maybe we make a large triangle for the body?

What do you think?

Okay, let's use our excess paper and we're actually, going to make a large triangle.

Now, to make a triangle, you just kind of cut down the sides like this, at an angle.

Just down the sides.

And it has three sides like this kind of a point, three points doesn't it.

We're going to use that to make our body.

Now you can't really see them because of the black hat and the black head and the black body.

But now we're going to add the details before we add any of the legs.

So here's what it's looking like so far.

Here's our head and here's our body.

So now it's time to make it very colorful like in our text.

The first thing I'm going to do is so Ashanti can see, or Anansi can see is cut out some eyes.

I think I'm going to make some white eyes.

I'm going to cut out a piece of white paper that I have here, you use whatever you have.

This might even be a nice project for some chalk.

Let's see, I cut mine in half stacked them.

And now I'm going to make an oval round and round it goes, where it stops only I know, and stop.

There's our two eyes, I'm going to glue them down.

And then our spider, because it's from Africa and the style kind of very specific to the folk kind of stories that are told there.

Has a little band on the top right here.

Do you notice that?

We're actually going to make that with some orange.

So I'm going to cut two strips like that.

What do you think those bands represent?

Can you research it and let me know.

I'd be really interested to find out, okay.

There's the two bands.

Mine are a little long, so I'm just going to cut them like this.

Oops, there we are.

Now you're going to take your time making yours.

I have to go a little bit fast because we're in TV land over here.

So I have to make it go a little quicker.

Next I'm going to make some eyebrows.

I have to cut out two triangles for some eyebrows.

That's pretty fun, huh?

I love making details like this to my art or my crafts.

Because I can start to see when they come alive.

We're actually going to put the eyebrows right up here.

Anansi is getting some form.

Here we go.

I'll show you what it's looking like.

And then you can help me decide what other things I might include.

So here's what our Anansi hat is looking like so far.

Here we go.

Next, we're going to need, let's see.

How about a smile, just like this one, yeah.

All right, what color shall I use?

I think I'll use green.

Let's do that.

Now the smile I've noticed is a triangle.

Kind of like that, kind of lopsided.

Do you know what that word means?

Remember, we talked about symmetry in our last project?

Lopsided is when two things are not the same, two sides are not the same.

So here's my triangle.

And I noticed in the text, it's kind of open like this.

So it needs like, there we go.

Now you can do it however you want.

So here's this.

Then I'll do a top part.

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

I think it's looking good.

It's getting there.

Now we need to decorate its body.

Now, did you know that some spiders have stuff on their body too, that indicate whether they're poisonous or not?

I'm thinking of the black widow spider.

The female has like a red hourglass on its belly that lets you know, don't come near me.

I will bite you.

And I'm venomous and poisonous.

So I'm going to cut out some triangles here, bright colored paper.

And I'm just going to put them down right here and almost look like pink fangs and my spider, Anansi.

Putting it down here.

There's one and two.

And maybe I'll add one last triangle to the bottom.

I think with my orange paper, let's do that.

And of course, know that I've saved all of these pieces of paper for another project, no throwing things away.

So hopefully you can start your scrap pile too.

Okay here, goes the bottom.

I'm going to turn it and then I'll tell you what we need to do the last bit.

So there's our hats so far.

Now we need to add some legs.

Now, do you remember how many legs a spider has?

Yes, that's right, eight legs.

That's what makes it different from an insect?

And insect only has six.

That and spiders, ruthlessly, viciously kill insects.

Maybe not to ruthlessly.

A little bit viciously.

I'm going to cut out some strips of paper like this, my black and I'm actually going to show you a technique for making really cool spider legs that move around.

Now, I thought that studying spiders was really important in this month of October.

Because as you go around to different stores, you might see some spooky things in stores like spiders or skeletons.

And now you can look at them and go, oh, that's a spider.

We're learning about them in Mrs. Laura's class.

They have eight legs, eight eyes.

They help us keep insects from not swarming and overwhelming us.

Maybe you can learn more facts so it's not so scary when you go to the store.

Okay, 3, 6, 1 more leg.

One more.

Okay.

So now what we're going to do is we're going to stack all of our little pieces of paper that we need.

Our legs and I'm going to crimp them, which means I'm going to go back and forth like this.

You might have to have a grownup help you with this part just to get you started.

Like this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

And, there you have some cool, spider legs.

So what I'm going to do is put my hat together like this with a little staple, and then I'll put my legs on.

And I might staple them on too.

There's my hat so far and we'll staple on our legs so they're kind of flying out this way.

Now of course, a spiders leg will be glued.

A spiders legs, come out of it's body.

They don't come out like this, but we're making a fun hat.

And make it hang, just like Mrs. Laura's hair.

I might not have time to show you all eight legs, but you make sure that you put all of them on or somebody's going to come up to you and say, excuse me, spiders have eight legs.

Not three, not six.

Here we go.

I might just do four here.

And then I'll tell you what we're going to do next time.

So there's one, we'll do one more leg.

Come this way, a little dot and I'll let you know what we're going to do.

So here is what our Anansi hat is looking like.

I'll add those when we go.

So I hope that you give this a try.

I'd love to see a picture if you'd love to send it in.

And don't forget to check out other books.

I have one more recommendation for you and I leave you with that.

Anansi actually has a whole series of books.

This one's called Anansi and the magic stick.

So check out that book.

All right, boys and girls come back tomorrow.

We're going to continue to study spiders.

I'll see you then.

Goodbye.