When it comes to Halloween fun, we are allllll about sticking to NON-spooky, but festive, activities and themes. That’s why when it was time to plan our October themes I knew we had to include a week for our spider preschool fun!
This spider theme is a great way to help children combine important Math and Literacy practice with a unique theme that helps them explore a familiar science topic – spiders! Below you’ll find tons of activities and tips!
Table of Contents – CLICK to jump ahead!
Halloween Theme Sensory Bin
One of the easiest ways to add excitement and hands-on learning to your preschool week is with a themed sensory bin. So many of the activities in our spider Preschool pack incorporate a sensory bin, so it’s best to knock out the preparation early on! Our Halloween sensory bin is always a hit with this theme—it’s simple to put together and offers tons of playful learning opportunities! Here’s how I like to set ours up!
FIRST, gather your materials. I like to use a plastic storage bin with a lid so I can cover and store the bin once it’s prepared. Choose your filler, like the dry black beans we use in ours. Something about the beans really makes all the colors in our spider theme POP and gives children a very unique texture to experience. Once you’ve chosen your filler, fill your storage bin as much as you feel comfortable with (knowing each individual child can handle working with different amounts of materials).
NEXT, grab some extra Halloween themed items like puffy Halloween stickers, Halloween mini erasers, colorful pompoms, sensory bin supplies from our spider pack, etc. These items make the perfect backdrop for the printable items in our preschool spider pack! Scatter them throughout your sensory bin filler and watch the theme really come to life!
FINALLY, choose a space that you feel comfortable using the sensory bin with your child. I tuck ours away in our homeschool room with the rest of our Preschool manipulatives, and keep our sensory bin blanket nearby for when it’s time to get to work. The rule with our bins – everything stays on the blanket! This makes clean up SO much easier.
READY, SET, PLAY!!! When your sensory bin is not being used for the printable activities in our Spider Preschool theme, allow children to explore freely! Watch them scoop, pour, dig, and more! I love taking our bin our when I need a little extra quiet time for homeschooling an older child, or honestly if I just need an extra minute to sip my hot coffee!
Spider Preschool Theme Overview
This Spider Preschool theme is sure to give your little learners TONS of fun practice! Children will have 15 center-style activities to choose from – 5 Math, 5 Literacy and 5 Fine Motor centers. In addition, I’ve included book recommendations for 5 spider themed picture books and links to their read aloud videos on YouTube!
To use these printables, you can follow the PRE-MADE lesson plans for a week full of fun! Each of the 5 pre-planned days your students will have 1 read aloud, 1 Math activity, 1 Literacy activity, and 1 Fine Motor activity to work on. This is a great pace for little learners! But if you’d like to spread the activities out or rearrange them according your own child’s needs, simply print our provided Build-Your-Own Plans page and make your own plans!
PS See how we use this theme in our Preschool scope and sequence by grabbing our FREE Preschool Curriculum Map below!
Math Activities
This set of printables has 5 fun Spider Preschool theme activities for practicing early Math skills. Children will practice number formation, number identification, counting, colors, and shapes. Our Preschool activities always include the use of small manipulatives for added fine motor skills practice!
One of my favorite spider theme Math activities is the activity shown above! Count and build activities are a fun way to take an important skill, like counting, and turn it into what feels like a game!
To complete this activity, children choose a spider card. They’ll identify the number on the card. Then using the cutout spider pieces or plastic spiders from the sensory bin, build the correct number of spiders on the spider web!
Literacy Activities
In addition to the Math centers, this set includes 5 early Spider Preschool Literacy activities! Children will practice skills like letter identification, letter formation, beginning sounds, and handwriting practice with spider life cycle vocabulary words!
One of my favorite Literacy activities from our vegetables theme is the one shown above. I love resources that can be used in a variety of ways, and that’s exactly what you get with this activity!
For younger Preschoolers just starting out with their letters, add the spider web letter cards to the sensory bin. Either call out letters for children to find in their bin, or help children identify the letters they find in their sensory bin and match on their mat!
For children who are ready for a little more challenge, call out beginning sounds and have children find the matching letters in the bin! Or practice alphabetical order by guiding children as they pull cards from the bin and match them on the ABC order matching mat!
However you choose to use this activity, know that your little learners are getting TONS of important early Literacy practice!
Fine Motor Activities
When working with little learners, strengthening fine motor skills is a must! Our 5 spider theme fine motor activities will have your children working hard and having TONS of fun! They will practice matching using clothespins, mold using play dough, trace using manipulatives, match animals, and so much more!
One of my very favorite fine motor activities are these pattern strips! To use, children identify the pattern shown on the strips of spiders. Then they practice in one of several ways. First, find matching colors in the sensory bin and cover the correct spiders on the strips. This helps children practice one-to-one correspondence and fine motor skills. Second, children can replicate the patterns below the strips using items from the sensory bin. Third, guide children in extending the pattern beyond the strip.
And there you have it – 3 different ways to use just one activity! This is why I love these strips so much!
And… I lesson planned FOR YOU!
This set of activities (and all of the other 45+ sets in our FULL Preschool Curriculum) include a full week of print and go visual lesson plans! It shows you exactly which books and printables to use each day for a 5-day school week, making lesson planning an absolute breeze!
Want to build your own? Or maybe your kiddos are ready for some of the activities but not all of them? That’s great! Use the included Build Your Own lesson plans page! These thematic centers were designed with growing learners ages 2.5 to 5 years old in mind, so this lesson planning page allows you to choose which activities your child is ready for right now!
Ready to learn with your toddlers or Preschoolers ALL MONTH LONG?! You can save TONS when you grab this set of centers in our October Preschool Curriculum! The bundle includes over 4 engaging October themes (like Halloween, monsters, and more!), complete with a week of lesson plans for each! You’ll also get 25 NO PREP Fall themed fine motor skills worksheets and crafts, and 38 NO PREP Math and Literacy worksheets for extended practice!
Let’s hang out!
I hope this post helped you get a better look at our Spider Theme Preschool activities! Got questions? Let me know! I’d love to chat and get to know you better! You can find us below in some of our favorite places to hang out. Can’t wait to chat with you about your Preschooler’s learning journey!
SAVE THIS POST FOR LATER!
Was this post about our Spider Preschool theme helpful? Make sure you can come back to this post as much as you need by saving it for later on Pinterest! Click the image below to save this pin to your Halloween Preschool Activities board! Then, CLICK HERE to read about more of our favorite October themed activities!
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