The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Teach farm animals and the importance of concentration with this simple, yet rhythmic and engaging story which offers a perfect example of how plain language and repetition can engage learners.

TOPIC: farm animals

AGE GROUP: 6-10 years old

LANGUAGE SKILLS: speaking and listening

THINKING SKILLS LOTS: remembering HOTS: matching, sequencing, creating and understanding

SEL COMPONENT: importance of concentration when working

VOCABULARY: farm animals / verbs

STORY BOX: create a box with flashcards or images of the animals that appear in the story. You don't need all of them, you can just use a couple of the most common (e.g. pig and cow) and then ask students to guess what the other animals in the story might be (accept only farm animals as answers). Add a toy spider and a fake web for students to feel.

Elicit specific vocabulary: spider, web, to spin a web. Discuss why spiders spin webs.

Procedure

Pre-reading

Using flashcards from the story box, teach or review animal farm vocabulary.

Create lexical groups of animals based on their physical characteristics: big/small, 4 legs/two legs, to help students remember the words.

Show the book cover and illustrations without reading the text. Ask simple questions:

• what animal can you see?

• where is the spider?

• what is she doing?

This will help students build background knowledge and activate prior vocabulary before storytelling.

Reading

Explain that the spider is working hard (busy) and is not interested in talking to other animals. So, when they go and talk to her the spider doesn't answer. Teach students the sentence "the spider didn't answer" and ask them to pay attention to the story and say the sentence when necessary.

To support listening comprehension, make storytelling interactive by asking questions like:

• what animal is it?

• what sound does it make? (how does it go?)

Ensure students answer with complete sentences: "It's a cow" rather than just "cow", "it goes moo moo" rather than just "moo moo".

After reading

Skill 1 - Remembering

Ask students to tell you what happens in the story:

• who is the protagonist?

• what is she doing?

• what animals appear in the story?

• how does the story end?

Older students can create a simple story map and fill it in with the details they remember:

STORY	MAP
Protagonist:	Settings:
Other characters:	Further details:

Skill 2 - Matching information

Explain the meaning of actions contained in the story by miming and eliciting the corresponding word:

• go for a ride

• eat

• run

• jump

• roll

• chase

• take a nap

• go for a swim

• catch a fly

Repeat once, then ask students to listen and mime. Give random commands and check that students perform the right action. To make the game more interesting, you can ask students to come to the front of the class in turns and give commands to the rest of the class.

Back to their desks, randomly list animals that appear in the story and then list the actions. Ensure animals and actions don't match. Students copy them on their exercise book. Then ask them to match animals and actions.

Skill 3 - Sequencing information

Ask students to divide their page in 10 boxes. Number the boxes from 1 to 10.

horse	cow	sheep	goat	pig
dog	cat	duck	rooster	owl

Ask student to fill the table with the names of the animals in the order they appear in the story. The correct order is shown above. Younger students can draw pictures rather than write words.

Skill 4 - Create and act

Using paper plates, create animal masks. Assign each student a character and act out the story.

Skill 5 - Understanding

Ask students to tell you why they think the spider does not talk to other animals. A good answer may be: "because she is busy", "because she is working".

Ask students to think about the following issues:

• why is it important to concentrate while working?

• what could happen if you are distracted? (you can make mistakes, you stay behind with your work)

• is it OK to interrupt someone who is working? why? why not?

Ask students to apply their ideas to behaviour in class and to formulate a couple of shared rules to put on a poster.

After you've worked on the story, you can use the sentence "the spider didn't answer" to re-establish order in class when students are being too noisy, reminding them of the rules created.

Try this lesson plan with your students and let us know how it goes. Don't forget to like, share and save. Join our blog mailing list to receive updates straight in your inbox.