Spider Subtraction Game and Craft

With the colorful pictures, adorable story line, and repeated text for choral reading this book is always a hit with my students. It's about a spider that decides it wants to become a pet of the family whose house it resides in. The determined spider tries so many tricks to grab the family's attention and convince them that she would be the best pet ever, but instead of being impressed the family screams and removes the spider from the house while yelling, "Out you go!"The students love reading this phrase with me each time it appears in the book, and of course, we go over how we need to read it with expression due to the exclamation mark! Finally, the clever spider unintentionally wins the family over with one of her beautiful webs and becomes a real pet. This enchanting book has a hilarious ending as the spider decides to invite all of her friends over to introduce them to her new family. After reading the story, we played a class subtraction game called "Out you go!" First graders can always benefit from subtraction practice, so we first reviewed how subtraction is the whole-part=part. Then we rolled a 10-Sided Dice in Dice.I'm a firm believer that you can never have too many different kinds of dice! It's such an easy way to change up an activity by pulling out a different type of dice. The kids love these dice because there are literally 2 dice in 1. The larger number became the whole and the smaller number became the part that was taken away. We used Plush Spiders to build our whole on the spider's web, which was made out of a Round Spider Web Tabletop. Then we all yelled "Out you go!" and took away the spiders equal to the smaller number from the dice to find the part that was left over.For example, if the dice had 7 and 2, we would do 7-2=5. We would all say the subtraction sentence together. This was such a fun way to practice subtraction! After playing the class game for a couple of rounds, the students played the game in partners by using spider web dessert plates, Plastic Spiders, and 10-Sided Dice in Dice.The partner who rolled the dice first got to build the larger number as the whole onto the plate, then the other partner got to remove the smaller number as the part that was taken away after the partners said "Out You Go!" They both then recorded their subtraction sentence onto the Spider Subtraction recording sheet (free download) and then switched roles.The lesson ended with a fun spider subtraction craft! Students made their own spider subtraction story by using the Spider Door Knob Hanger Craft Kits, Orange Construction Paper, Glue Sticks, and the "Aaaarrgghh Spider!"Download the Free Spider Printable here! Since the Spider Door Knob Hanger Craft Kits come with 7 spiders, we decided our whole number had to be 7 or less, but you could also have students share spiders if you want some wholes to be higher than 7. After students determined what their whole number would be they put the part that is taken away onto the construction paper and then the part that was left over was the spiders left on the web. Students also recorded their story and subtraction sentence on the "Aaaarrgghh Spider!" printable. They glued or stuck (6 of the spiders are stickers) everything to the orange construction paper.  This spider math game and craft was such a fun, hands-on way to practice our subtraction in first grade! Yay for fall-inspired learning!