by
Arnold Lobel
Hop
on in to find some fun "froggy" activities!
Harcourt Trophies 2nd Grade
uses Frog & Toad as one of their story selections. I'm doing
inclusion this year with my 2nd graders, so some of these activities
may be specific to that reading series.
Frog & Toad
Facts
|
Frogs |
Toads |
smooth, moist skin
live mostly in or near water
good swimmers
makes long jumps
avoid direct sunlight, heat
more active at night or on rainy days
have bulging eyes and fairly good vision
have a long, sticky tongue to capture prey
have teeth
group of frogs is called an army
average age is 4 - 15 years |
dry, rough, bumpy skin
live mostly on land
shorter, less powerful back legs
walks instead of jumps
avoid direct
sunlight, heat
more active at
night or on rainy days
have bulging
eyes and fairly good vision
have a long, sticky tongue to capture prey
have teeth
group of toads is called a knot
average age is 4 - 15 years |
Tip: I always have trouble
remembering which is Frog and which is Toad in the story. So I
explained it to our 2nd graders like this ... Frogs like water, so
that's Frog sitting on the island. So to remember that, think
about frog and a foggy or "froggy" island. :) (One of my past
students use to say it was "froggy" outside instead of "foggy!"
:) )
Bulletin Board: My
neighbor's
Trophies
Frog & Toad Vocabulary Cards: Print out the cards below to use with
small groups and have students match the words to the definitions.
Frog & Toad Vocabulary Matching Cards
Adapted
workbook pages:
pg
26
pg
27
Editing:
Frog and Toad editing
Scavenger
Hunt: Created by Alice Thomas
Scavenger Hunt
Compound Words: Use
Barb's activity to have students match the two frogs that would go
together to make a compound word. You could even make a log
for each set and have the word printed on the log. To make the
compound word, the two correct frogs would need to hop onto the
correct log. There's some brown wood grain border that could
be used for the log (see Carol's photos below), or you can make your
own. Thanks Barb for making this cute activity! :)
Compound Words printable 1
Compound Words printable 2
Frog Float: This idea
was shared on one of the 2nd grade mailrings. I haven't tried
it, but do have some ideas for adapting it. Give each student
a big scoop of lime sherbet in a cup (frog's head). Pour in
Sprite to almost cover head leaving only face above "water."
Add two mini marshmallows for whites of eyes (I'd like to see if you
can snip one of these in half and only use one marshmallow per
student). Place a mini chocolate chip, brown M&M, or drop of
chocolate on top of each marshmallow for center of eye. Use
chocolate syrup from a spout and make a wide smile. Last, add
a piece of red Twizzler, licorice, or piped icing for tongue.
Drink with a straw.
Riddle: What happens when a
frog and toad collide? A: They become tongue tied! :)
Five Green and Speckled Frogs:
Carol, at
The
Learning Tree, shared this activity with me. She's a whiz
at coming up with cool new ideas! :) Print the story from the
download below and make this interactive book. If you'll
notice, as you turn each page, there's one less frog on the log!
Also, only the last page actually has the log and the water.
The other pages just come right down to the log where it looks like
the frogs are on the log. So the book would have 6 short pages
(counting the cover) and one long page. Click on the photos
below to enlarge them.
Download the
text for the book.
*Stop by
Carol's page to check out what she's up to now! It's
always something good!*
Another
idea:
http://www.carsondellosa.com/buddies/pdfs/fivegreenandspeckledfrogs.pdf
Five Green and Speckled
Frogs Math Mat: Have students act out the song as you sing it for
good subtraction practice.
The frogs are stickers on milk
caps. Also, shared by Carol.
How Many Frogs? counting book:
I created this book to use with my kindergarteners at the beginning
of the year. It only covers 1-5 since they start the first
week only learning about number 1 in their RE class. I left
enough room in the boxes of the last page for them to write the
numbers 1-5 if they can.
How Many Frogs? counting book (numbers)
How Many Frogs? counting book (number words)
How
Many Frogs? pocketchart: I like to put all my books on sentence
strips and read them with my students using a pointer until they're
very familiar with the text. Then we start to try and track
text in the book (with kindergarteners or those students at that
level). This is the book that I made above and how I use it in
the pocketchart. The frogs are Ellison cut-outs.
Frog Counters: I have a whole
basket of those colored, plastic frogs that you mash on the behind
and they jump. I'm going to number a bunch of Ellison lily pads and
have the kids count out the correct number of frogs for each lily
pad.
Measurement: Use the same
frogs from above in an activity for estimating measurement.
Have students estimate how far they think their frog will jump then
let them make it jump. Have them measure how far it jumped and
record the measurements on a chart. Graph the measurements for
the class to see who had the longest jump, shortest, same, etc.
Pompom Frog Counters: Cut out
green felt or foam hearts using the small Ellison heart cutouts ..
the ones that you can cut 4 hearts from a quarter sheet of paper.
Glue a green pompom on top of the point of the heart and the humps
of the heart stick out and become the frogs feet. The heart will
help to stabilize the pompom and keep it from rolling around. Glue
two wiggly eyes to the top and a piece of rolled up red felt for a
tongue.
Bean Frog Counters: You can
also create frog counters by painting dried white beans green (cheap
spray paint) and using a white paint pen to add eyes to the humps on
the bean. Then add a black center dot in the eye, black dots on the
back of the bean for spots and a red tongue and a smile. :)
Tattle Frog: Annette had the
idea of getting a stuffed frog to have in the classroom for the
children to tell their tattles to. She said it saves her ears.
:) Thanks for sharing, Annette.
Ribbet: Get another stuffed
frog and name it Ribbet. This frog will hop around the
classroom from one student's desk to another ... but only to those
who demonstrate appropriate behavior or whatever the specified
objective is he's looking for. :)
Froggie
Literature Pocket: I'm going
to make Literature Pockets for each of my students. Inside the
Literature Pocket will be the things that we create for the Frog
Unit. It will have their books, any art projects, etc.
Below is the label I created for the front of their pocket.
Literature Pocket label (color)
Literature Pocket label (blackline)
Pocketchart Shapes: Use this
sentence frame in your pocketchart to teach and reinforce shapes
with your students at the beginning of the year.
This is a (circle). Who
has a (circle)?
In the first sentence, instead
of the word in parentheses, have a picture of the shape. Each
student will have a card with a shape on it. The student that
has the matching shape will bring their card up and place it at the
end of the second sentence.
As the year progresses and
they begin to learn their shapes, you can change the sentence frame
to ..
This is a circle. Who
has a rectangle?
Froggie
Number Lines: Sometimes I have students who have good
one-to-one correspondence in counting, they just can not get the
number identification down pat. Those students are taught to
use a number line to help them with their numbers while they're
learning them. With that in mind, I created this Froggie
Number Line.
Don't know what a 6 looks
like?
Hop down the number line and
count as you go.
Stop when you say 6.
Now you know the number 6! :)
Froggie Number Line printable
A
Frog In Your Pocket: Hmmm ... how to explain this. :)
This is an activity for the student to match lowercase and capital
letters. You have to purchase the denim pockets (the one in
the picture is actually blue because my denim ones are at school),
print the yellow letter patches and trim with pinking shears or
fringe, then glue a letter patch to each pocket. Print the
coordinating letter cards on cardstock and then laminate everything.
Slit the denim pockets back open using the point of a sharp pair of
scissors or an Exact-o knife by barely running it down the crease
making sure not to cut through. You can leave the pockets free
floating or attach them to posterboard, a tri-fold board, a bulletin
board, whatever you want to do.
letter cards printable
patches printable
Froggie
Name Plates: When teaching letters, I do a lot of things with their
names ... so I created these matching names plates. Hopefully
they'll be big enough to squeeze their names onto and then they can
use them for models, maybe cut up one and use for sequencing, etc.
Froggie Name Plate printable
*Note: someone on
TA suggested
using these for sight word cards instead of name plates! Good
idea! =)
I'd
Rather Be A Frog book: This is a factual book that I wrote, and my
sister illustrated, to go in our Froggie Literature Pocket (see
above). I also make pocketchart pictures to go with it,
because I always put my books on sentence strips and use them in the
pocketchart so that we can read them together there. The books
are printed for the students to color and use independently or with
their friends, however I will do some modeling with them. I do
not expect them (kindergarteners) to be able to track in the books
at the beginning of the year. We can use the pocketchart
pictures to practice matching the pictures to text as well as cues
for the text. *for purchase at The Teacher's Bookbag
I'd Rather Be A Frog
Number
Practice: Print, cut in half. Practice writing numbers
underneath. Because these squares are about the right size,
you could also use the number strips to have the students put number
tiles in the correct order, I think. I'll have to try it when
I get to school to see if they fit.
Number Practice printable
Welcome
Cards: Print and sign these cards for a "hoppin' good start' to a
new school year.
Welcome Cards
Froggie Quilt: We made this quilt using ideas from my friend Carol
that I adapted. We made the lilies after reading the book
Once Upon a Lily Pad. The lily pads are from a reproducible that I
had and we reduced them to about 8.5 inches to fit on the 9 inch
square. The white part of the lily is made from a coffee
filter. I folded it in half and had the children cut
sharp points on the rounded side (which made each one unique) :) .
Then I used another coffee filter to cut circles from 3 colors of
layered pink tissue paper. We folded those circles in half and
the children cut sharp points in them as well. Then we bunched
the pink paper up in the middle of the white paper and twisted the
bottom. Then I glued these onto the lily pad which the
children had glued to a white square.
I made the frog head on the
computer and printed it on cardstock. The children cut them
out and "decorated" them by answering questions from a frog glyph I
wrote.
The caption says: We are so
hoppy to be learning!
The bottom paper is the frog
glyph.
I just LOVE how this quilt
turned out!!! :)
Art
and Writing: In one of the books we read it talked about all the
different things that a frog eats: dragonflies, flies, grasshoppers,
etc. So I had this reproducible pattern for this frog and I
needed to extend it to be more than just an art project of just
cutting it out and gluing it together. Sooo ... I created the
tongue for it from red construction paper and had the children draw
something on the end with a black crayon that they would want their
frog to eat (or what they'd want to eat if they were a frog).
Then they rolled up the tongue and glued it to the frog. Then
I had them fill in the sentence frame with the word that matched
what they drew on their tongue. Since these were
kindergarteners, I either helped them spell their words or they
copied them from a piece of paper. Then I mounted them on the
red construction paper for displaying. The frog pattern came
from one of those freebies that they send you in the mail trying to
get you to buy a whole set of monthly things that goes on for years.
Frog
Life Cycle: These patterns came from The Mailbox extensions
online. I'd packed up all my books at the time and didn't know
exactly what I was supposed to do with them so I created my own
activity. :) We painted paper plates blue to represent the
pond and then they glued the pictures around the plate in the
correct order of the frog's life cycle. Since the adult frog
lives both in and out of the water, we put her on the lily pad.
Books:
The Wide-Mouthed Frog
Five Little Speckled Frogs
The Frog Prince
Frogs ~ Gail Gibbons
From Tadpole to Frog ~ Wendy
Pfeffer
Jump, Frog, Jump ~ Robert
Kalan
The Icky Sticky Frog ~ Dawn
Bentley
Once Upon a Lily Pad
Froggy Goes to School
Where Do Frogs Come From?
Too Many Frogs! ~ Sandy Asher
This is how I displayed my
books. The shelf was already blue, so I added two different
colors of lily pads and before we'd added the lilies to our quilt,
they were in our "pond" as well. I'd hoped to add some frogs,
but I don't have any frogs (stuffed, ceramic, etc).
Links:
That Toad is Mine! Reader's
Theatre
http://www.smbsd.org/uploaded/reading/files/First_grade_reading/
Readers_theater/That_Toad_is_Mine_Readers_Thea.pdf
Frogs & Logs Math Mat idea
http://www.carsondellosa.com/buddies/pdfs/frogslogsmath.pdf
Frogland!
AllAboutFrogs.org
http://www.allaboutfrogs.org/
Frogs and Toads
http://42explore.com/frogs.htm
SCORE Frog & Toad Are Friends
- Teacher's Guide
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/frog/frogtg.html
Frog and Toad Photographs and
Calls
http://www.naturesound.com/frogs/frogs.html
Frogs and Toads at Enchanted
Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/frog.shtml
Find Frog & Toad (Elementary
Web Quest for 2nd Gr)
http://teacherexchange.mde.k12.ms.us/teachnett/byrd.htm
1st Grade Frog & Toad Unit
http://home.att.net/~cattonn/frog.html
Lesson Exchange: Frogs And
Toads Are Different (But Still Friends)
http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1027.html
Frogs: A Thematic Unit
http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Interdisciplinary/INT0025.html
Frogs: Science Web Quest
http://www.can-do.com/uci/lessons98/Frogs.html
Lesson Exchange: Guided
Reading Using Gail Gibbon's Book Frogs
http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1134.html
Exploratorium: Frogs
http://www.exploratorium.edu/frogs/index.html
The Somewhat Amusing Word of
Frogs
http://latham.dropbear.id.au./frogs/
Froggy Page
http://www.frogsonice.com/froggy/
Frog & Toad All Year WebQuest
(2nd Gr)
http://homepage.mac.com/varkgirl/red6449/webquest/index.html
Life Cycle of Frog or Toad
http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/lvelem/frogsandtoads/lifecycle.html
Frog and Toad (2nd grade mini
unit)
http://www.col-ed.org/cur/lang/lang44.txt
San Diego's Zoo Animal Bytes:
Frogs and Toads
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-frog_toad.html
CGEE: "Frog"quently Asked
Questions
http://cgee.hamline.edu/frogs/science/faq1.html
Frog and Toad Internet
Friendship Project
http://www.cps.k12.ri.us/~murphy/friends/
Frog and Toad Teacher Web Home
Page
http://teacherweb.com/IN/PNC/ridley/
Amphibians: Preschool
Activities and Crafts
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/amphibians.htm
Frog & Toad Puppets
http://www.puppetjungle.com/folkfrog.htm
Spring (comprehension
questions)
http://www.globalclassroom.org/spring1.html
Life Cycle of a Frog (VERY
GOOD printable cards)
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/pskinfrogseq.htm
Push and Pop Out Frog
http://www.doverpublications.com/samplerkids/1229/children9c.htm
frog coloring page
http://www.learningtreasures.com/suite101/frog1.gif
Frolicking Froggie Board Game
http://kidscrafts.suite101.com/article.cfm/frolicking_froggie_board_game
I'm So Hoppy! (a Welcome Back!
to School card)
http://kidscount1234.com/
Name Tags (printable)
http://worksheets.teach-nology.com/misc/back/tags/5/
Name Plates (printable)
http://worksheets.teach-nology.com/misc/back/plate/7/
The Learning Leap (2nd Grade)
... you can check out some other "froggie" classrooms! :)
http://www.teacherweb.com/IN/Ossian/Schwartz/hf4.stm
Frogs (coloring page)
http://www.kidsrcrafty.com/frogs.htm
Kid Zone: Frogs
http://www.kidzone.ws/lw/frogs/
Draw a Frog
http://www.billybear4kids.com/Learn2Draw/sheets/frog.html
Frog Paper Craft
http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mpaperfrog.htm
Paper Bag Frog Puppet
http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mfrogbag.htm
Jump Frog Jump printables
http://www.arkansas.gov/childcare/services/printedmats/pdf/story/jumpfrog.pdf
Too Cute Frog!!!
http://www.frontiernet.net/~goofis1/Images/Animal/Frog.jpg
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12.28.05
last updated 4.24.10 |
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