This week we learned about Amphibians. We had done research reports on mammals, birds, reptiles and ocean animals. But when it came time to do amphibians, we had run out of time and had to move on to our other units. So we did a quick day of amphibians. The kids really wanted to and kept reminding me about it every week when we went to the library. “Should we get amphibian books Mrs. Moss?” No, let’s just do a few fun activities and call it Frog Day!
SCIENCE
I started the mini unit by reading Fantastic Frogs below. Then I showed pictures from a giant hardback beautiful book I recently bought called Fabulous Frogs by Sue Unstead. It has incredible photography of all kinds of colorful tree frogs of every variety in the rain forest. There are interesting captions on each photo. A great website that has a compare/contrast of frogs and toads is HERE at the Virtual Vine. It is very bright and colorful too!
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| Frog Books for First Graders |
Books in our unit…..I always like to mix fiction with non fiction in text sets.
Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel
Frog on a Log by Phil Roxbee Cox
Froggy Learns to Swim by Jonathan London
Flashy, Fantastic, Rain Forest Frogs by Dorothy Hinshaw
Fantastic Frogs by Fay Robinson
Fabulous Frogs by Sue Unstead
That Toad is Mine by Barbara Shook Hazen A link for a reader’s theatre of the book is HERE
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| Frog Art Project |
ART and POETRY:
Cut out the frog shapes and color the circles spots with Crayola oil pastels to get some of those rain forest, deep, colorful hues. Glue on wiggly eyes and a stick on back. We then cut a 1/4 inch strip of red paper and forked the ends like a tongue. I didn’t even know frogs had forked tongues! Then we curled them around a pencil and glued them on the mouth. On every puppet we make we attach a poem or song to the back and use it as a shared reading or shared song. I found the book 5 little speckled frogs with the song lyrics and typed that up to attach to the back of the frogs. Then I made up 5 little speckled frogs out of light and dark green felt. I used black sharpie marker for the “speckles” and left a little finger opening so kids could put them on fingers to act out the song.
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| Class Frogs! |
I also have several cool bags of tiny rain forest frogs to use for counters or just to look at under the mini magnifying glasses. Kids love to have a stack of cool non fiction books with pictures and the viewers with frogs just in a tote tray at a center for viewing and reading. It helps that I also have aquatic frogs as class pets. We have three frogs; 2 boys that fight over the 1 girl. One male actually bit off the hand of the other male. I told them it’s a dog eat dog world in the animal kingdom. Even FROGGIES fight on the playground of life! Eek!
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| Frog Finger Puppets! |
MUSIC: Sing the song Frog on a Log or 5 Little Speckled Frogs acting out the frogs “jumped into the pool” and use percussion instruments with students as you sing the song whole class. Copy off the lyrics on to an overhead or a poster board to sing along. Or type up individual copies of the song to glue on a puppet.
Sing the song with percussion instruments. The UTUBE song with words link is HERE. The link for the lyrics is HERE. A coloring page frog printable can be found at this link HERE. I just copied off the frog of my choice onto green construction paper and kids colored it using the Crayola oil pastels. They work fantastic!
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| Five Little Speckled Frogs Song |
Frog Jokes
Q: What happens if a frog parks in a bus stop?
A: He gets toad away!
Q: Why are frogs always happy?
A: Because they eat whatever bugs them.
Q: What happens when two frogs catch the same fly?
A: They get tongue-tied!
Q: What do you get when you cross a pig with a frog?
A: A ham-phibian!
Q: What kind of frog lives in a tree house?
A: A tree frog!
SCIENCE and WRITING:
Frog Fact non-fiction books are the best way to start little mini reports. List the frog facts on a giant green butcher paper frog you cut out before school. As kids hear a fact from the book have them show a thumbs up. When the page is done write 1 fact from a child with quotation marks on it. “Frogs are amphibians, “said Tommy. Not only will they love seeing their name in print, they will learn how to do “66 and 99 the talking marks. All my students can do them.
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| Here’s an old one I had tucked away…..no quote marks on this one…sorry! |
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| Frog Fiction Books… |
SCIENCE
Then watch a video of the frog life cycle. Read the 2 books of non fiction. Then have the students make individual Frog life cycles. A free printable link from teacher vision is HERE. Or another one with more science terms is HERE. Add one more page in the life cycle book for “froggy facts” in the same shape as the life cycles and add some writing lines to it. Kids will remember cool frog facts that way. Whatever you do, keep a copy for next year’s class!
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| Frog Life Cycle Book |
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| Frog art projects… |
VOCABULARY
Make a list of the vocabulary words and have kids come up with definitions to go in a pocket chart for a center. Kids can mix up the words with the word strip definitions and put them back in the correct order again. My students do this after lunch a couple of times a week and they all get 100% on vocabulary tests we add to the spelling test each week. I usually give them 4 to 5 vocabulary words a week relating to the science or social studies for the week.
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| Frog poems Frog facts |
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| Frog Puppets! |
MATH: Read the story Frog and Toad are Friends. Do a button activity with the students where they will figure out which button Frog lost. Give each table a zip lock bag with these buttons inside. One white, one 2 holed, one round, one large. The lesson plan link isfound HERE. It is on the Illuminations website. My students always love it. A website on frogs is HERE. It is called frogland.
Then give each table a cup of buttons and a bulls eye board. They are to follow your directions as you read them. (a bulls eye poster is just 5 concentric rings each smaller than the one surrounding it). A bullseye board link and lesson plan is HERE. I tell them to sort all the white, round buttons and place on 2nd ring. Colored buttons stay on the outside ring. Then out of those move any 2 holed white buttons to the 3rd ring. Then move any 4 holed white buttons to the 4th ring. 5th ring will be the smallest button from the 4th ring. The kids enjoy sorting AND looking for attributes.
Another fun one from this site is “Bears in a Cave” only I use plastic “frogs” I ordered that come on logs of 10, and I use them with cups which become the” froggy forts” Kids can learn missing addend really well this way. The link to the frogs math game is HERE. They are from Lakeshore Learning.
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| Frog poems frog facts |
Then do a Venn Diagram activity using the buttons. Pass out cards to each table that say 2 holed, red, or shank, white, or blue, 4 holed, or textured, black etc. A wonderful link to the lesson plans and blackline masters to these games is HERE. It’s from UEN website. Have kids figure out what goes in the middle if the 2 descriptors for buttons go on either side of the Venn. This is a great activity for emphasizing logic in math through Attributes. Kids love sorting your buttons too. In the past I’ve had kids wear and bring donations of buttons in and we count them in groups of 10 each day. That’s a great way to get a good button collection too.
MATH: Another activity to do is make frog flip overs. They are fun for the kids to make and use to memorize their math facts. HERE is a tutorial on making Frog addition flip overs. It’s a very cool project for addition practice.
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| Frog stick puppets (on a straw) |
Here are our finished frogs. Aren’t they…. ribit ribit…..slurp…..so cute?