Frog Themed Unit Study

My classroom is filled with frogs. From the frog in the aquarium to the tadpoles in the Sensory Table there are live frogs for the children to observe during free moments in the day. There are paper frogs with frog words written on them creating a Froggy Word Wall which helps the children remember how to spell their new vocabulary words. Above the Art Center there are directions on how to draw frogs, how to create origami frogs as well as molds and plaster for creating paintable frogs. The easel is set up with yellow and blue paint which can be mixed to create frog green, lily pad green and dark green frog pond green.

Am I obsessed with frogs? Possibly. But my students love it. They hop into class with big bullfrog smiles and eagerly read the message of the day, a message about a new species of frog that was just discovered in the rainforest of Costa Rica. We have been looking for new species all year and each time we find one we place a small frog sticker on each country where they were discovered.

After reading the message of the day, the children take out their journals and write. Many of them choose to write about frogs. There are a couple of children who have been working on creating frog poems. They make a long list of words that rhyme with frog. Another child has been observing the frog in the aquarium. Each day he records his observations in a journal where he draws the frog's position and records any other observations. There is a group of three boys drawing the comic version of Super Frog and a couple of girls creating an ecological play promoting reasons for removing envasive spcies from a local frog pond. Others write letters, stories, folk tales or dialog.

To signal the transition to Calendar Time I ask one of the children to click the frog clickers. Upon hearing the sound the children quickly finish up their writing and come over to the frog pond rug. Each child has his or her own lily pad to sit on and comes over to join in on our newest frog song or poem that I have written on large chart paper. The calendar helper gets to wear a frog hat and use a Cat-O-Nine Tail to point to the words.

Once all of the children have joined us we switch to math. We look for patterns in frog and toad dates that we add daily. We recite the days of the week and then the months of the year. We talk about what frogs do during each of the months. Are they hibernating, laying eggs, hatching, turning into froglets?

I read a book about frogs and then it's time to go outside for a trip down to the frog pond. I wonder what we will see down by the frog pond today?

For more hands-on, frog activities be sure to visit my Frog Unit Study pages.