Miss Spider's Tea Party

Miss Spider's Tea Party, by David Kirk, is the perfect story to introduce the concept "judging a book by it's cover" to children. Miss Spider invites all her neighbors and all of the insects she encounters over to have a tea party with her, but nobody wants to join her because she is a spider, and spiders and known to eat insects. In the end, Miss Spider takes a wet moth home to nurture him back to health. The moth tells all his pals what a great character Miss Spider is, they drop their judgments, and all become friends with Miss Spider. This is a great story for young elementary age children to get them to reach out and make friends with everybody, no matter what they look like?

What's a sociable spider to do when no one will accept her invitations to tea? Seemingly unaware of her own predatory reputation, the eponymous arachnid is perplexed and saddened when a parade of potential guests scuttles, scampers and scurries away "in mortal dread." A timely rainstorm provides the perfect opportunity for Miss Spider to prove her good intentions, however, as she lovingly nurtures a rain-soaked moth with sweets and warm brew. Good news travels quickly, and before long her web is abuzz with a full-scale tea party. "Her friends were glad to watch her feast / Upon the floral centerpiece. / It was a great relief to see / She ate just flowers and drank just tea."

This book is fantastic! It's about a spider who desperately wants to be friends and have a tea party with other bugs, but no one will spend time with her. All of the other bugs are afraid. At the end, all of the insects learn they were all wrong about Miss Spider and realize she is a wonderful friend. This is great to use in the classroom setting to teach students about being kind to each other and not judging one another. Also, it can be helpful to use in teaching kids about insects (and not to be afraid of them).

This book is amazing! It is so colorful, bright and educational. I believe this a great read a loud story. If you want to read this to a group of students I would focus on the friendship problems and the fear of being alone.

Summary: The little spider decides she wants to have a tea party and invite other friends. None of the other insects will join the spider because they are scared of her. Eventually, she gets a chance to help save a moth, who then tells everyone how nice the spider really is, and she gets to have her tea party after all.

Personal Reaction: This reminds me of how many people are so quick to judge people by what they look like on the outside before they know who the person really is. It makes me really appreciate the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover."

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1. The book has a rhyming scheme, so it could help introduce a rhyming or poetry project.
2. Have all the students pair up with a classmate they do not know very show more well for an activity so they can get to know each other. show less

Summary:

Miss Spider’s Tea Party is about a lady spider who wishes she had friends to spend time with and a drink tea with. She encounters a lot of different bugs and tries to extend invitations to sup with her and drink tea but the bugs would always be afraid and turn her invite down. One night during a thunderstorm nine moths were waiting for the storm to pass, the lady spider invited them to tea but the moths just flew away. However one of the moths wings were too wet to fly, so the lady spider fed him and served him tea and when his wings were dry enough she helped him fly away. The moth went back and told all of the bugs that were afraid of the spider about her hospitality. All the bugs came to eat with her and drink tea; they show more were also glad that the lady spider only ate flowers and drank tea.

Personal Reaction:

How many times have we’ve judge someone without taking out the time to really get to know them? My mind can’t help but wonder all the potential friendships I could have missed out on because of this. We single people out with what we think we know about them, but I wonder how many times have we’ve been wrong? This story puts a lot of things in perspective and I really enjoyed reading this book. This was a great story.

Extension Ideas:

1. Reading this story is great at Halloween time; students can make spiders to hang in the classroom as Halloween decor.

2. Student will be assigned to a student that they never or rarely talk to and the student will interview that person to get to know them. The student will compare their likes and dislikes to see how much they have in common with their assigned partner. show less

This book is about a lonely spider who just wanted company over for a cup of tea. Every insect she approached to invite to a tea party would get dreadfully scared and run away. A thankful moth told every insect about Miss Spider's good deed and suddenly she had many friends over for tea.

I thought this was a very cute book and it had great illustrations. It was very bright and that alone would capture children's attention. It had a great underlying meaning that would be beneficial for any teacher to point out.

I would use this book to start a discussion. This discussion would include how it is not right to judge someone before you get to know them. I love art so I would incorporate some kind of art project into this lesson.