We study various life-cycles during the year. I like to end school with the life-cycle of a frog because my students will be "leaping" into a new grade. They came to me as a small Y5 egg, hatched into a wiggly little tadpole; swam their way through all sorts of units; grew, and grew and hopped through September into June! Now it's time to leap forward into summer and splash around in the sunshine.
I hope you'll enjoy making some of these quick and easy projects to help your little polliwogs quickly grasp some science facts in a fun way!
Frog Life-Cycle Crowns:
A fun art extension for your students to make is a life-cycle crown. My Y5's LOVE wearing crowns. If you don't want to make this into a crown, simply skip the step of adding on a headband and you're done. You can display them on a wall as is, or put the frogs on a lily pad.
The life-cycle circle is the belly of the frog and makes a nice science review. If you opt for the crowns, don them, line up your little ones and hop around in parade-like formation to help get the wiggles out. To view/print the frog life-cycle crown, click on the link.
An easy way to make a crown is simply use 1 and a 1/2 pre-made sentence strips. Bulletin board borders are also inexpensive, durable and make for a bright headband as well. You can match them to whatever theme you want, or simply green, green striped or polka dots looks really smashing too!
Remember to staple strips so that the prickly parts of a staple are on the outside so that they don't scratch a forehead or get a girl's long hang caught.
Frog Life-Cycle Sliders:
Another quick and easy art activity is a "slider". To make a frog life-cycle slider click on the link. Have students add large wiggle eyes and left over valentine heart stickers to add some extra pizzazz.
Frog Booklets:
I've also made an easy reader so that students can practice their reading and writing skills entitled The Life Cycle Of A Frog.
Don't forget to check out the FREEBIE of the month, Where Have All the Flies Gone? It's an easy-reader subtraction booklet that has those adult life-cycle frogs gobbling up the flies. It includes an art extension where students can make a frog with a long tongue they curl on a crayon and then stick the flies on. Click on the link to view/print one.
Where Is Froggy is a darling spatial direction booklet.
Other Frog Stuff:
If you'd like more frog activities, click on the links to check out my 78-page Frog Unit ($2.95) as well as some cute art activities in the 98-page May Art Mini-Book ($1.99). Here you can see pictures of some of my other frog life-cycle art projects dangling from the ceiling in the hallway! Click on the link and then on the camera button.
I like to recycle things and we used our milk cartons from the lunch room as an under-base for our frog life-cycles. It's one of my favorites as the frog is sitting on a lily pad. Simply have students twist the end of a white coffee filter to make the perfect water flower. Insert it into a small hole that's made with a hole punch in the side of their lily pad. This will add a nice 3-dimensional effect to any bulletin board.
Why not become a gold subscription member and be able to down load these kinds of activities at no additional charge for an entire year.
Frog Books:
Two of my favorite frog books to read are Icky Sticky Frog complete with a sticky rubber tongue you can pull and snap while you read the story, (The art project that goes with my "Where Have All The Flies Gone?" is a wonderful math-art-reading extension to do after readomg this book! I also like The Wide Mouth Frog, by Keith Faulkner, which is an adorable pop-up book.
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They are definitely "must have's" for your frog collection of books, as my Y5's will attest. They repeatedly beg: "Read it again pllllllease!" For a larger list of my favorites check out my side BLOG Books of the Month, and then click on the May Bibliography link.
Be sure to check out the Five Little Speckled Frog activities article after this one!
I hope you have a "toad-ally" awesome time doing your frog-spring things!
