5 Green and Speckled Frogs

Who doesn't love frogs?!  I am so excited about this week and all of the fun activities that Ryan and Ethan are doing all surrounding the topic of frogs!  So as you may have guessed, the touch and feel pool was full of....frogs!  We learned that frogs like to hop and swim.  We talked about frogs being "amphibians" (and of course we clapped out the syllables) which means that they like to live on land and in water.  We talked about all the different colors of the frogs in the touch and feel and made them hop all around.  We also made patterns with our frogs.  We learned that the word "frog" starts with a /f/ sound.

After morning circle, free play consisted of working with our magic magnetic wands that amazingly pick up little circles and balls.  Ryan and Ethan had fun connecting the magnets, forming them into longs snakes, and seeing how many circles they could pick up at the same time.  Then they went to the art table for some fun frog painting with Do-A-Dots.  

We hopped like frogs as we held the rope to the playground today.  The chilly weather did not affect Ryan and Ethan's fun on the playground at all.  They never stopped running as they went from shopping cart races to chase to playing hide and go seek.  As they played hide and go seek we worked on the phrase, "Ryan/Ethan where are you?" and "I found you!"  They also had fun pretending to cook and serve me food at our "take-out" window, and crawling through the tunnel.

We started our language circle today with our new song of the week, "Five Green and Speckled Frogs."  As usual, I used picture/word cards to facilitate comprehension and retention of the new vocabulary words being introduced in the song.

After we learned our new song and the hand motions that went along with it, we read one of my personal favorites, The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner.  This pop-up book tells the story of a friendly wide-mouthed frog who meets a variety of animals and asks each one what it likes to eat.  When the wide-mouthed frog meets a big green alligator, he is very surprised to learn that alligators like to eat wide-mouth frogs!  So...he puckers his lips to make his mouth as small as possible and jumps into the pond with a SPLASH!  Ryan and Ethan loved the book!  Each animal that the frog meets pops-out of the book, and the reader can make each animal "talk" as the story is told.  If you don't own this book, it is a great one to have in your child's little library!  After we read the book, we talked about how frogs travel...do they run? walk? hop?  What do frogs like to eat (flies/bugs)?  Where do frogs like to live (water and land)?  

For art, we of course had to make our own wide-mouthed frogs using paper plates and construction paper.  First, we painted the paper plate using green Do-A-Dot paints.  Second, we attached the legs, eyes, and tongue; and last, we added a black puff ball to the tongue as the fly.    

Activities to target at home:

1. Ask Ryan and Ethan the same questions that we targeted above about frogs.

2. Play hide-and-seek while targeting the question "Where are you?" and the statement, "I found you!"

3. Sing the song "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" while pausing for your boys to fill in the blanks on their own while singing.  

I can't wait to see Ryan and Ethan on Thursday as we learn more about frogs and their life cycle!