Spider Shapes Math Game

Happy October Excellent Educators! It’s been a few weeks now that our favorite stores (Target and Dollar Tree) have been flooded with fall and Halloween items. It’s such a fun time of the year to work with young children because they get so excited between October-December! (Truth be told…we are just as excited as them!) October was one of my favorite months in the classroom. It was the month where my procedures, routines and class climate really started to take form but it also brought me great joy to see the excitement and smiles on my student’s faces when we did fun fall activities!

Spider activities were always a hit with my kindergarteners. I would surprise them by decorating our room with spider webs and fake spiders the evening before the first day of October and their reactions were priceless! Please note: If you decide to do something similar, you should be prepared from that day until October 31st to be asked if it is Halloween yet. 🎃😋😊

When planning lessons and activities, I considered their spider excitement and made a math game called Spider Shapes. It was a differentiated game I used for math centers to work on recognizing and naming various 2-D shapes.

To play the game you only need two simple things: the game template (mat and cards) and a brown paper bag.

The goal of the game is to fill up your spider web mat by matching the shapes on the spiders cards to the shapes on your web.

Each player starts with a blank spiderweb board and places all the spider cards face down in one pile. One player will pull a spider card first and name the shape on the card.

If the player has that shape open on their web, they will lay the card on top of that same shape. If they do not have that shape, they will place the card in the brown paper bag.

The next player will follow the same steps. If either player pulls out a mad spider (the green spider without a shape) then they lose a turn and place the mad spider in the brown bag. If a player picks a smiley spider card, they can choose what shape they want it to be, to match any open shape on their mat.

The players will continue to pick cards and attempt to fill their mats first. If the players run out of cards in the pile they will continue by shaking up the bag and pulling a card without looking.

This game is great for solo play or for up to 6 players! See game directions for tips and directions on how to print cards for more than two players.

There are three levels to this game to allow for easy differentiation for your groups!  Level 1 is the easiest with the most basic shapes and level 3 is the hardest with more complex shapes.

Think this would be a great activity for your class? Just click the link below to purchase this game packet!

 

Happy Teaching EEs!