TheFiles

Vegetarian SpiderS

CuriosiTy

Explorations with profEssor ana lyzE, ExpErt in outlandish odditiEs

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www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com2The Curiosity Files: Vegetarian Spiders

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Vegetarian

SpiderS

The CuriosiTy Files:

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Everything You Never Wanted to KnowAbout Vegetarian Spiders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Let’s See How Much You’ve Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11In the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Figure It Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 . Vegetarian .Spider .Silk .Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 . Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 . Spider .Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 . Multiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 . Numerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 . Vegetarian .Spider .Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 . Protein .Percentages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 . Absolutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26The Write Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 . Oxymorons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Spelling and Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 . Elementary .Word .List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 . Junior .High/High .School .Word .List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 . Spelling .Activities .(elementary) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 . Spelling .Activities .(middle/high .school) . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 . Word .Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 . Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 . Just .For .Fun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Table of Contents

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Copywork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 .

In the Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

. Arachnids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

. Anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

. Spider .Silk .and .Web .Walk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 .

Good Old Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

. Where .in .the .World? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Let’s Get Creative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

. Make .a .Jumping .Spider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

. Web .Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

. Paper .Plate .Spider .Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

. Torn .Paper .Acacia .Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

. Creepy .Crawly .Cookies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

. Mini .Web .Cakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

. Coloring .Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Hands-On Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

The Curiosity Fact Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

. Snippet .#1: .Spider .Flaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

. Snippet .#2: .Spider .Vocabulary .Pocket . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Music Mania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

On the Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Read All About It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Wanna Learn More? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Answer Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

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Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Professor Ana Lyze.

Some might say that I’m eccentric, but not my great lab “spies.”

My research team and I specialize in the obscure, the abnormal, and bizarre.

We search land and seas for these oddities, and make each one a star.

Outlandish insects, rare diseases, unique gems, and more,

There are things in God’s creation that you’ve never seen before!

Our goal is to educate children about subjects they’d never find otherwise,

To get them thinking creatively and give their minds some exercise.

So we present to you this offering and hope it brings some smiles,

As you read, learn, and research The Curiosity Files.

introduction

Professor Ana Lyze

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www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com6The Curiosity Files: Vegetarian Spiders

Aren’t you glad that there are some things in life you can count on? You know, like rain always falling down and not up?It’s true. There are a lot of things that God created as absolutes. These con-stants make up the vast majority of our natural laws and show us that our God is a God of order, not chaos. He designed beautiful numerical patterns into the petals of the flowers, set the planets into orbits, and arranged our year into a predictable rotation of seasons. He clearly values the idea of “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

But sometimes, He seems to have decided to suspend those absolutes.

Suspend them? How?Well, sometimes things that seem to be set in stone just aren’t. Like butter-flies that pop up in parts of the world where they shouldn’t be. Or spiders that prefer to dine on plants instead of flies.

I’ve heard of migration patterns that go awry. But what’s this about plant-eating spiders? I thought all spiders were meat eaters.Well, most spiders aren’t actually meat eaters, per se. While some of the bigger versions of the species (think tarantulas) eat the actual flesh of their prey, the vast majority of arachnids prefer to liquefy their dinner by means of a special venom that they inject into the insect they’re about to consume. This venom is very much akin to the digestive enzymes in your stomach, which break bits of food down into a more usable form. The venom turns the prey’s insides into mush but leaves a nice exoskeleton shell intact to serve as a con-tainer for the spider’s supper.

Everything YouNever Wantedto KnowAbout Vegetarian Spiders . . .

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