13 Literacy Activities About Spiders

Celebrate spiders with these 13 literacy activities, collected from my archives and various educational blogs around the web. 

• Sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider a cappella, play it on ukulele, or guitar, or change the words to incorporate multi-colored or differently sized spiders. 
• There are many wonderful folktales about Anansi the Spider, including adaptations by Gerald McDermott and Eric A. Kimmel. Introduce little ones to this eight-legged folk hero using Raffi's song, Anansi from The Singable Songs Collection.
• Give your young friends the shivers with There's a Spider on the Floor, also by Raffi, which features a spider slowly climbing up one's body. 
• Enjoy I'm a Hungry Spider, a song to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot" which Growing Book by Book featured last Fall. The song promotes rhyming skills and phonological awareness, as well as physical movement. 
• Demonstrate how a spider uses her web using Four Colorful Flies, a rhyming story I wrote  about the four colorful flies who are captured one by one in a spider's web. The clip art flannel board pieces I used for the story can be seen in this post. 
• Tell and retell Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider, using these free printable stick puppets created by Jessica from Littlest Scholars. Without the sticks, these pieces could also be used on the flannel board.
• Play a name game with The Silly Willy Spider. The simple verse tells of a silly spider who climbs on each child in the group in turn, then jumps onto someone else. The words are available here.
• Count down from four with the Four Little Spiders rhyme from King County Library System. It works as either a fingerplay or flannel board. 
• Have kids act out the creation of a spider web using their hands with the help of Spider, Spider, a simple action rhyme.  
• Visit Can Teach for the text to The Spider Poem, which explains the differences between spiders and insects. (It is the fourth poem on the linked page.) 
• Teach opposites vocabulary and make kids giggle with a silly joke using Spiders, a poem shared here by a school in Billings, Montana.
• Create a Word family Spider like the one shown here, on the blog Thank God It's First Grade. 
• Practice color words with this free printable sight word reader from Lydia at Owl Be in Kindergarten. 

10 Literacy Activities About Pumpkins

Pumpkins are a popular preschool theme this time of year! Check out these ten great activities to accompany your pumpkin lessons and story times.

• Count from Five Little Pumpkins Round down to none with a piggyback song based on Five Green and Speckled Frogs which I created several years ago for the flannel board. (A free printable adaptation, Four Little Pumpkins Round, is also available here.) 
• Practice reading with the Where is the Pumpkin? printable reader available to download free courtesy of Jamie Harnar at Teachers Pay Teachers. 
• Tell the very simple story of Mr. Scarecrow's Jack o'Lantern using puppets or flannel board pieces. 
• Act out the traditional Five Little Pumpkins rhyme. 
• Retell This is Not a Pumpkin by Bob Staake using a puppet or flannel board. 
• Sing Dr. Jean's Once I Had a Pumpkin, and review the vocabulary for each of the parts of a face. 
• Spell your name using Colorful Pumpkin Seeds, as shown at Fun-a-Day.com.
• Share the rhyme Five Giant Pumpkins on the flannel board, as suggested by Sarah from Read Rabbit Read. 
• Retell The Very Hungry Caterpillar as The Very Hungry Pumpkin using this clever idea from Crayon Freckles.
• Review the alphabet with a Pumpkin Letter Recognition activity, available as a free printable from Aloha Kindergarten. 

Great Books Not Yet Nominated for Cybils 2015

There is just over a week left in the nomination period for the 2015 Cybils, and there are a number of great titles that surprisingly  have  not been nominated yet! Below I have listed some of the books missing from the categories that I typically review.

Easy Readers

• A Pig a Fox and a Box by Jonathan Fenske 
• Mr. Putter and Tabby Turn the Page by Cynthia Rylant 
• Written and Drawn by Henrietta by Liniers

Early Chapter Books

• The Case of the Snack Snatcher by Liam O'Donnell 
• Shelter Pet Squad: Merlin by Cynthia Lord  
• The Not-So Itty-Bitty Spiders by Aimee Marie Stadelmann 
• Izzy Barr, Running Star by Claudia Mills
• Stink Moody in Master of Disaster by Megan McDonald
• Lulu and the Hamster in the Night by Hilary McKay 

Fiction Picture Books

• Roar! by Julie Bayless
• In a Village by the Sea by Muon Van
• Ask Me by Bernard Waber
• Such a Little Mouse by Alice Schertle
• A Wonderful Year by Nick Bruel 
• Little Baby Buttercup by Linda Ashman 

Middle Grade Fiction 

• Breaking the Ice by Gail Nall 
• Cassidy's Guide to Everyday Etiquette (and Obfuscation) by Sue Stauffacher 
• The Best Friend Battle by Lindsey Eyre 
• Bo at Iditarod Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill 

Young Adult Fiction 

• Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

Review Round-Up: Books for Beginning Readers, September 2015

Cybils News

If you enjoy these round-ups, or have been included in them, you probably have plenty of favorite titles in the easy reader and early chapter book categories. If you have discovered a new favorite since last October, please consider nominating it for Cybils. Nominations open on October 1st, and everyone is entitled to submit one nominee per category. To learn more about the types of books we're looking for in the Easy Reader/Early Chapter Book category, check out the official category description.

Also, please congratulate these lovely bloggers, who have been selected to judge the Easy Reader/Early Chapter Book Category this year:

Round 1:

• Katie Fitzgerald from Story Time Secrets
• Juliana Lee from Juliana Lee, Crafting Stories
• Susan Murray from From Tots to Teens
• Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom
• Jennifer Wharton from Jean Little Library

Round 2:

• Emily Andrus from Literary Hoots
• Freya Hooper from One Great Book
• Amy Johnson from Sunlit Pages
• Teri Lesesne from LSSL 585 Blog
• Kurt Stroh from Kids Talk Kid Lit

Now, on to the reviews!

Easy Readers

As so many blogs did over the summer, Jean Little Library weighed in on What This Story Needs is a Pig in a Wig. (Her verdict is similar to mine, though I have yet to write a review!)

Also getting attention from multiple blogs are new Toon Books, such as Written and Drawn by Henrietta by Liniers (reviewed both here and at Waking Brain Cells) and Flop to the Top by Eleanor Davis, reviewed at Books 4 Your Kids, as well as Bob Shea's latest,  Ballet Cat: The Totally Secret Secret, which appeared at both Miss Mary Liberry and One Great Book this month.
Some blogs dug up some oldies but goodies this month as well. At Becky's Book Reviews, there is a review of Pizza Pat, originally published in 1999. Literary Hoots reviewed Eric Carle's Have You Seen My Cat? and in honor of Cybils, Family Bookshelf resurrected a 2010 easy reader nominee, Wolf Pie, for its Throwback Thursday Book Review.

Finally, Mom Read It rounds out the list with an easy reader non-fiction title: A Visit to the Library by Mary Lindeed.

Chapter Books

While the easy reader reviews were relatively few and far between this month, it seems like everyone has been reviewing beginning chapter books!

Scholastic's various Branches series have been popular. Literary Hoots reviewed Dragon Masters: Rise of the Earth Dragon, Great Kid Books reviewed the first two Owl Diaries titles, Mom Read It reviewed Olive & Beatrix: The Not-So Itty-Bitty Spiders, and Kids Book a Day reviewed Olive & Beatrix: The Not-So Itty-Bitty Spiders, and Silver Pony Ranch: Sparkling Jewel.

Also popular is Kate DiCamillo's second installment in her Tales from Deckawoo Drive series, Francine Poulet Meets the Ghost Raccoon, which was reviewed by Books 4 Your Kids, Kids Book a Day, Randomly Reading, and Unleashing Readers. (In the same post Unleashing Readers also reviewed The Princess in Black and the Perfect Princess Party, which appeared here at Story Time Secrets this month as well.)

The rest of the chapter book reviews I found this month can be read below: 

• Billie B. Brown series reviewed at The Lion is a Bookworm
• Charlie Bumpers vs. the Perfect Little Turkey, reviewed at Jen Robinson's Book Page
• Digby O'Day and the Great Diamond Robbery, reviewed at Books 4 Your Kids
• Dory and the Real True Friend, reviewed at Readerkidz
• Izzy Barr, Running Star, reviewed at Jean Little Library
• Justice League vs. Bizarro League, reviewed at Mom Read It
• Lego Elves: Quest for the Keys, reviewed at Mom Read It
• Lost in NYC, reviewed at From Tots to Teens
• Mrs. Noodlekugel and Four Blind Mice, reviewed at Books 4 Your Kids
• Mrs. Noodlekugel and Drooly the Bear, reviewed at Books 4 Your Kids
• My Pet Human, reviewed at Provo Library Children's Book Reviews
• Piper Green and the Fairy Tree reviewed at Kids Book a Day
• Violet Mackerel's Natural Habitat, reviewed at Batch of Books
• Wild Water Magic, reviewed at Batch of Books

If you find a review I missed, let me know in comments, and I'll do my best to add it in. Thanks for visiting this month's round-up!