Halloween is about a month away.  It's the perfect time to study arachnids!  

When you use our Montessori-inspired Arachnid Activities for Elementary Students with FREE Printable you're sure to have everything you need for your Montessori students ages 6-12.

I  know my kiddos have been having a blast with these animal activities.  Every single one is new and never seen before.

Montessori-inspired Arachnid Activities for Elementary Students

Spider Grammar Habitat

Whether you provide your students with only word strips and grammar symbols or you create your own spider habitat to inspire, this sentence building activity is sure to be a hit!

Our kiddos organized all of the strips in rows for easy access. Then they built their own sentences using words of their choice.  They seemed to have a lot of fun and learned so much about sentence structure at the same time.

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Arachnid Measurement Activity

This was by far the most popular arachnid activity introduced to the kiddos. They couldn't get enough of it.

After introducing inches, yards, centimeters, and meters the kiddos read the measurements on each card.  Using their rulers they made a line that represented the measurement of each arachnid.  Then they labeled their lines.

The kiddos loved comparing arachnids and their lines.  This activity was such a great way to introduce measurement.  They especially had fun when measurements required the use of a yard stick or meter stick.

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Arachnid Who Am I? Cards

Dinomite loves Who Am I? cards.  He is having a blast with these ones.  

The printable is created so that matches are next to each other.  When you print out each pair, if necessary, be sure to label cards so you know which ones match.

I know that Dinomite will be successful with this activity, so I decided to test it out on Princess to see if she could figure out the answers. Sure enough she did!

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Parts of a Spider Activity with Vocabulary Cards

It's one thing to label parts of a spider, but another to understand the words you're writing and apply them.

In this activity the kiddos use the definition/vocabulary cards and control chart provided to label parts of a spider.  The kiddos then find these parts on the spider figure provided.

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Parts of a Scorpion Activity with Vocabulary Cards

This is the same activity as the Parts of a Spider Activity except with a scorpion.  The scorpion figure is a new favorite in our house.

The boys really enjoyed this activity.  They learned so much.  Using the figures as part of the activity made a huge difference!

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Arachnids: Dangerous or Not Dangerous?

My kiddos are obsessed with knowing which arachnids are dangerous and which are not dangerous.  I think finding a black widow in our house a couple years back left quite the impact on them.

In this activity the kiddos will match picture and description cards.  Each card lists the arachnid's habitat and whether or not it's dangerous and why.

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Orders of Arachnids Sorting Activity

One wouldn't think there are a lot of different kinds of arachnids, but there are!  In this activity there are picture and description cards that explain each order of arachnids.

There are also picture cards to sort so that students can see for themselves what each order looks like.  It's no surprise Dinomite loved this activity as you can see from his smile above.

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Spider Hunting Strategies Sort

Not all spiders spin webs to catch insects.  Different spiders use different types of hunting strategies.  In this activity you discover for yourself what some of them look like.

There are three different hunting strategy cards with descriptions.  Then there are several different picture and description match ups that can be sorted under each hunting category.  Once again Dinomite loved this activity.

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Arachnids Pin Poking or Cutting Activity

Kids can never get enough cutting practice, especially as they get older and can be more precise.  In the arachnids printable pack there are two different sizes of outlines to fit the needs of all students.  

Kiddos can either pin poke images or choose to cut them out with scissors.

Princess absolutely loves pin poking so she decided to go that route.  She worked to ensure all would turn out as she wanted.

Source: The printable for this activity is part of our Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

The Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack is such an incredible resource for teachers at school and home.  

What I've shown here to day is only part of the printable pack.  Other preschool printables included are shown in the post below.

Montessori-inspired Arachnid Activities for Preschoolers with Free Printables

If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy the FREE printable below.

My kiddos absolutely loved the arachnid measurement activity.  They begged and begged for us to make more cards.  We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Source: This is a Subscriber's Only Freebie. Follow the directions below to obtain your copy.

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2. Subscribe to our free newsletter.

3. Open the thank you message you receive in your e-mail, after subscribing. (Be sure to check your spam folder, as sometimes it ends up there.)

4. Click the confirmation link in the thank you message.

5. Once the confirmation is complete, you will receive another e-mail message with the Subscriber Only Freebies.

6. Click on link.

7. Find the printable pack you are looking for listed in alphabetical order, click on it, and voila!

We hope you enjoy your free printable.

Note: If you are already a newsletter subscriber, open your most recent newsletter. At the bottom you will find a link to the Subscriber Only Freebies page, along with the password in case you forgot it.

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Montessori-inspired Arachnid Activities for Preschoolers with Free Printable

As we get closer to Halloween we've decided to study spiders.  

Boy oh boy is Sunshine having fun with her new Montessori-inspired Arachnid Activities for Preschoolers.  You'll also love that they come with a new free printable!

I love that all of the images you'll see in this post are true to life.  

Sunshine can be frightened easily by spiders.  

We designed these activities to help her work through some of those fears.  

Spiders can be absolutely fascinating if we take a moment to learn about them. There are so many different kinds!

Montessori-inspired Arachnid Activities for Preschoolers

S is for Spider Tweezing Activity

Whether you're working on letter sounds or looking for ways to develop fine motor skills, do-a-dot printables are fantastic.

In this activity Sunshine practices using tweezers to transfer tiny spiders onto the dots.  It was a little more difficult than she anticipated but she did a great job.

There is also an S is for Scorpion Do-a-dot page included in the Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.  

I found these little spiders at my local Walmart in the Halloween table decor section.

Source: The printable from this activity is from the Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Spider Web Letter Writing

A few kiddos at our co-op are struggling to remember how to write their letters.  Some are writing in print while others are working on cursive.  I created these books to help them with letter formation.

There is a control book for upper and lowercase print and cursive letters as well as blank pages for writing practice.

Sunshine loved using one of the books. She didn't want to stop until she had finished an entire book.

Source: The printable from this activity is from the Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Skip Counting by 8s

Spiders have eight legs. We thought it would be fun to introduce, work on, and/or review counting by 8s with our kiddos.

Sunshine's not quite ready for this activity yet, so Princess stepped in to help me show you how it works.

The kiddos use the skip counting cards and Montessori math bead bars to count by 8s all the way through 96.

Source: The printable from this activity is from the Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Life Cycle of a Spider

This may be my favorite preschool activity included in the arachnids printable pack.  

There are so many life cycle of a spider printables out there but they're all drawings.  

None include real life images of what the cycle looks like.

This one does!

Sunshine loved putting her life cycle together using the control provided.  

The printable pack also includes life cycle nomenclature cards if you want to work on sequencing or vocabulary terms.

Source: The printable from this activity is from the Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

Spiders vs. Sea Spiders Sort

When studying arthropods we learned that spiders and sea spiders are in the same group.  We thought it would be fun to sort out these creatures so we all understood what they are and what they look like.  

Sunshine found this activity fascinating. She didn't know there was such a thing as sea spiders.  The cards were great for her to use. She loved finding the words "sea" and "spider" to successfully sort them.

Source: The printable from this activity is from the Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack

Sorting Arachnids by Habitat

We know that spiders can be found all over the world, so studying spiders by continent doesn't really make sense.  But, most spiders have a preference about their living conditions. Some like the desert. Some like forests. Others like caves.

In this activity kiddos sort out which spiders prefer which habitats.  Sunshine wasn't home when I was taking these photos so Princess stepped in to help me out.  She really enjoyed this activity as well.  It's great for both preschool and elementary students alike.

Source: The printable from this activity is from the Montessori-inspired Arachnids and Sea Spiders Printable Pack.

  

FREE Montessori-inspired Spider Nomenclature Cards

Kids will get a kick out of these spider nomenclature cards!

Choose to use them as a memory game or in typical nomenclature fashion.

Source: This is a Subscriber's Only Freebie. For your copy, follow the directions below.

Directions on How to Obtain Subscriber Only Freebies

1. Click on the Subscriber's link at the bottom of this post.

2. Subscribe to our free newsletter.

3. Open the thank you message you receive in your e-mail, after subscribing. (Be sure to check your spam folder, as sometimes it ends up there.)

4. Click the confirmation link in the thank you message.

5. Once the confirmation is complete, you will receive another e-mail message with the Subscriber Only Freebies.

6. Click on link.

7. Find the printable pack you are looking for listed in alphabetical order, click on it, and voila!

We hope you enjoy your free printable.

Note: If you are already a newsletter subscriber, open your most recent newsletter. At the bottom you will find a link to the Subscriber Only Freebies page, along with the password in case you forgot it.

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FREE Daily Tasks Checklist for Elementary Students in Montessori Classrooms

We’ve just finished the first month of the school year. I couldn’t be more pleased with how things are working.

My husband and I spent the entire summer planning and preparing for the new year knowing that we needed to tweak a few things.

Our favorite tweak has been the Montessori-inspired Daily Tasks Checklist for our kiddos and friends.

Everyone is following the elementary curriculum (ages 6-12) this year so documenting progress is more important than ever. Elementary students need to show growth in all subject areas to meet state and district academic standards.

Montessori-inspired Daily Tasks Checklist for Elementary Students

Five friends are joining us for our Montessori co-op a couple mornings each week.

On days our friends aren’t here, Dinomite, Bulldozer and Princess receive lessons and continue with their Montessori work.

And yes, you read that correctly, Princess has rejoined us at home and will not be returning to public school this year. (That’s a story for another post.)

When Sunshine comes home from school and completes her afternoon routine she also chooses Montessori work from the shelves to complete. She looks forward to this every day.

The Montessori-inspired Daily Tasks Checklist works for everyone with the few variations provided in the printable.

Before I go into more details I wanted to be sure to explain the composition of our class and why we designed the Montessori-inspired Tasks Checklist the way we did.

Meeting Special Needs in the Montessori Classroom

If you’ve been following the blog for a while then you know that Dinomite, Bulldozer, and Sunshine are autistic. We also have one other autistic boy in our co-op.

The Montessori-inspired Tasks Checklist is the perfect visual for autistic students to guide them through their work. 

There’s a beginning and an end which my neurodiverse students love in a Montessori environment. 

It also helps break things down to minimize feelings of being overwhelmed. 

I also love that this checklist gives them choices and stays aligned with the Montessori philosophy.

Dinomite, Bulldozer, and Sunshine also have ADHD. One of our other friends also shows ADHD characteristics.

The Montessori-inspired Daily Tasks Checklist helps children with ADHD stay focused. 

When they get distracted, all they have to do is take a look at their checklist and they get right back on track.

Dinomite and Princess have anxiety disorders. One of our other students also struggles with anxiety. Anxiety can lead to students feeling overwhelmed in the classroom easily.

This Montessori-inspired Tasks Checklist helps keep anxieties in check with ways to celebrate every success.

Princess and Sunshine have Reactive Attachment Disorder. The more control they have over their own schedule the better.

The Montessori-inspired Daily Tasks Checklist gives children with trauma issues the control they need. They know exactly what they’re supposed to do and can do it without constant teacher and student interaction.

Four of my students are still not able to read and write independently. Still, these students love the checklists just as much as the older kids do. 

They may need help filling the checklist out, but they’re memorizing what each box says over time. Eventually they will be completely self-sufficient.

If you're looking for more tips and ideas to meet the needs of neurodiverse kids in the classroom, be sure to read the post below.

The Best Tips for Montessori Homeschooling

  

Now let’s get into the details of how this checklist works!

How the Daily Tasks Checklist Works in a Montessori Classroom

Each box on the checklist corresponds to shelves we have in our homeschool classroom or required daily tasks.

Students are asked to complete one task for each box. They can go in any order they’d like. A teacher or parent signs off each task box as it’s completed.

Students do not need to fill in every box each day, but we want to see a variety of work being completed over the course of each week.

Lessons count towards completing the Montessori-inspired Daily Tasks Checklist. For example, if a student receives a lesson in language, I sign off that box on their checklist.

Documenting Work Progress with a Teacher's Signature

Our Montessori-inspired Daily Tasks Checklist includes a place for a teacher’s signature in each box.

Now, you may be thinking what? Why would a teacher have to sign off on each task?

Here’s why.

I have some students who get really distracted while working. The end of task check-in is crucial to helping them stay focused. Sometimes we do middle of task check ins.

For some of our neurodiverse students the end of task check in is a cue to show us their work and celebrate the completion of a task.

I have some students who will take any shortcut they can to complete a task. Knowing that each task requires a signature encourages students to slow down and work more effectively.

As students become more comfortable with the Montessori model, develop a love of learning, and are self-motivated to complete tasks accurately, we only need to take a glance at a completed task. In some cases students approach us at the end of the day and we sign everything off at once knowing they were working diligently the entire time. It just depends on the student.

Required Daily Tasks

Montessori elementary education is a little bit different that Montessori preschool in that students are required to learn, practice and master specific skills to pass off state mandated curriculum requirements.

There are five required daily tasks for our kiddos.

1. Math Review

2. Language Review

3. Writing Assignment

4. Reading

5. Self-Care Tasks

Math Review

Each day I write a “Math Problem of the Day” on the whiteboard in our homeschool classroom. Each kiddo is required to complete the problem in their math notebooks. 

I give a “Math Problem of the Day” to ensure that the kiddos don’t regress and that they’re constantly reviewing things we’ve learned throughout the year.

Language Review

The language review task usually consists of writing letters and/or words. Our co-op friends are still working on letter formation. My kiddos are progressing with their cursive. Each kiddo has a white board where I lay out their language review task.

Writing Assignment

For those who have been following me for a long time, you know I’m a huge fan of daily journal writing in the classroom. Each of my kiddos and their friends have writing journals. All are required to answer a question in their journal each day.

For each grade they’re in they add a sentence to their answer. My first graders are writing one sentence answers. My fourth grader is writing four sentence answers.

Reading

My young and emerging readers are working through the BOB Book Series. Each of them works through sets 1 through 5. We read one BOB Book a day. When they’re able to read it correctly without assistance we move on to the next one.

My older students who are seasoned readers receive a reading list at the beginning of the year. This list is tailored to their interests and reading abilities.  

They are asked to read one chapter of the book they’re currently working on. 

 If they’ve just finished a book they work on a book report instead. At the end of every book they write a book report.

Self-Care Tasks

We eat breakfast with our co-op friends when they arrive. This results in our kiddos not having completed all of their self-care tasks before friends come. 

 It is incredibly easy for my kiddos to forget their daily tasks with the excitement of having friends over. We’ve added these tasks to the checklist for that very reason.

Other Tasks on Checklist

The other tasks on the checklist correspond to shelves in our classroom.

Science, history, and geography materials and activities each have their own sets of shelves.

We have two sets of math and language shelves.

Each kiddo selects one activity from each set of shelves each day. They are welcome to do more once they’ve completed the checklist.

If they don’t get to a subject area or task box because they’re working on a bigger project that’s okay. There is no penalty for not finishing the checklist. It’s only a guide to lead them through their work period.

The biggest thing for me is that I have documentation of what each kiddo is working on and that I can see a variety in their selections during a work cycle.

Student Binders

I store the daily checklists in binders for each of the kiddos. This way I can look back and see what they’ve accomplished.

If I have questions where they left off after a long break, I can use the checklists as a reference.

At the end of the school year I have documentation of all the work that each kiddo has done.

I also keep other charts in their binders like their letter formation checklists and BOB Book checklists. (Also included in the printable.)

Clip Boards

Each kiddo and friend has a clipboard where their daily task checklists are stored. They carry their clipboard around with them each day. When they're finished they return them to their spot.  

In our homeschool classroom I’ve color coded everything. Each student has a different color except for Bulldozer having dark purple and Diamond having light purple or see through purple.

Free Printable

I’ve debated sharing these checklists as I know they’re very specific to our kiddos’ needs. But no matter how your classroom is set up, a version of the checklists should still work. (I’ve included four in the free printable.)

Please remember these are for Montessori elementary classrooms and are not recommended for preschool students.

If you do decide to download the checklists, I hope you enjoy them as much as we have. They have worked better than I could have ever imagined to help my kiddos and their friends stay on task.

Source: The task checklist for elementary students in a Montessori classroom is a subscriber only freebie. For your copy, follow the directions below.

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1. Click on the Subscriber's link at the bottom of this post.

2. Subscribe to our free newsletter.

3. Open the thank you message you receive after subscribing. (Be sure to check your spam folder, as sometimes it ends up there.)

4. You will be sent a confirmation e-mail. Be sure to click the link to confirm your subscription.

5. Once confirmed you will receive a "Thank You" Message.

6. The link to our Subscriber Only Freebies page as well as password to access it is in the "Thank You" message.

7. Click on link and type in password.

8. Find the printable pack you are looking for listed in alphabetical order, click on it, and viola!

We hope you enjoy your free printable.

Note: If you are already a newsletter subscriber, open your most recent newsletter. At the bottom you will find a link to the Subscriber Only Freebies page, along with the password in case you forgot it.

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