Aaaarrgghh, Spider!

Short description

Aaaarrgghh, Spider! is a story about a spider that just wants to be a family pet. However, every time he tries to do something to show how good he would be as a pet, the family screams, and he is put out of the house. This lesson incorporates the basic skills of reading, listening and speaking with activities that engage the students’ imagination while actively engaging them during the reading process: the pupils can join in shouting  "Aaaargghh! Spider!" every time the spider is spotted. The story is written and illustrated from the spider's point of view. The red cover with its dangling spider, black, hairy title letters, and sparkling silver webs attract the pupils. This book is great to use with Halloween!

Competence Aims in LK20

  • use a number of common small words, polite expressions and simple phrases and sentences to obtain help to understand and be understood
  • read and talk about the content of various types of texts, including picture books
  • learn words and phrases and acquire cultural knowledge through English-language literature

Learning objectives

The pupils shall able to 

  • increase English vocabulary needed to describe spiders and other pets
  • describe orally spiders and other pets using new vocabulary
  • respond orally to questions before, during and after the reading using English grammar structures taught in lesson
  • show vocabulary understanding through physical and aesthetic activities.

Resources

Preparations

  • Teacher should practice reading the story beforehand.
  • Prepare Flashcards
  • Check the webpage LearnEnglish Kids at British Council
  • Small branch from a tree
  • Woolen thread

Plan of Lessons

Activity 1

Pre-reading

Make the pupils sit in a circle on the floor.
Introduce the word Spider and ask them what it means. Draw a spider on the blackboard. Try to make the pupils describe the spider. They can use Norwegian as well but say and write the English translation. (for example: small, hairy, many legs). Draw a spider’s web and write the English word on the blackboard. Introduce the word pet and talk about what kind of pets they know.

Activity 2

Learning and practising new vocabulary

Show the pupils the front cover of the book and ask them what they think it is about. 

Keywords

Dance, wash, eat, ride, shop, feed, swing, clean, garden, spider, web, friends, pet, lonely, clever, happy, sparkly

Main structures

  • I want...
  • I know..
  • I’ll show them...
  • Look at me!
  • Watch me..
  • Aaaarrgghh, Spider!
  • Out you go!
  • To make a good pet.

Use flash cards with a picture of the word on one side and the spelling on the other. 
To practise the keywords ask simple questions with What: 

  • What is he doing?
  • What is this?
  • What is he?

In order to teach the main structures make the pupils say after the teacher a sentence with the structure in. For example Watch me dance. Encourage the pupils to speak whole structures by showing flash cards to combine with the structure. Watch me—WASH.

The pupils make their own cards with the English word on one side and the Norwegian word on the other. Draw attention to transparent words like wash, dance, eat. They work in pairs and try to come up with the English word or vice versa without looking at the other side of the cards.

Activity 3

Reading

The teacher reads the story and pauses on each page to allow the pupils to see the illustrations. Point out that the story is upside down from the spider’s perspective. Allow enough time for them to marvel at the sparkly web the spider has made in the garden. Check that the pupils have understood the meaning of the story.
Encourage the pupils to shout “Out you go” when the spider is somewhere it shouldn’t be. 

Activity 4

The pupils read the story. The teacher reads page by page and the pupils repeat each sentence.

Activity 5

Simon Says
The game Simon says is used to reinforce new vocabulary. This is a group game where players must follow physical commands only if they begin with the phrase "Simon Says". Simon says dance! Touch your leg. Point to your eyes. Simon says…

Activity 6

Miming
Ask one pupil to pick a flashcard and mime the word. The class guess the meaning of the word in English.

Additional Activities

Activity 7

A traditional children´s song

Teach the class the song and the actions to go with it (use fingers and hands to climb, to fall, to rain)

Listen to the song on British Council LearnEnglishKids and do the activities suggested.

British version:

Incy Wincy spider
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed poor Incy out
Out came the sunshine
and dried up all the rain
And Incy Wincy spider
Climbed up the spout again.

 

American version:

Itsy Bitsy Spider
went up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out
Out came the sun
and dried up all the rain
And the Itsy Bitsy Spider
went up the spout again

Activity 8

Teach the pupils 

A Dipping Rhyme (“elling”)
Eeny, meeny, miney, mo
Catch a spider by the toe
If it wriggles let it go 
Eeny, meeny, miney, mo.
From Juliet Munden and Astrid Myhre, Twinkle, Twinkle, 2nd edition, Kristiansand: HøyskoleForlaget, 2007, p. 63.
Encourage the pupils to use it during their breaks.

Activity 9

Learning by doing and a cross-curricular activity

Use a small thin branch from a tree or a bush and make a spider’s web by weaving woollen thread around it. Put the web on the classroom wall and stick the word cards to it.

Activity 10

Ask the pupils to draw a picture of their family and their pet if they have one. Help them write words like mother, father, brother, sister and name of pet on the drawing. 

Follow-up

Find out about what kind of spiders there are. Pupils can cut out pictures of spiders and glue them in their workbooks.

Ask the pupils to tell a little about one type of spider of their choice.

Developed by

Anna Birketveit, senior lecturer at Høgskolen i Bergen, Karin Dahlberg Pettersen, Fremmedspråksenteret © Fremmedspråksenteret

Revised by Gini Lockhart-Pedersen, © Fremmedspråksenteret

Publisert 22. apr. 2021 12:17 - Sist endret 18. sep. 2026 10:28
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