Recycled Art for a Frog Themed Unit Study
Recycled children's artwork becomes classroom decorations for a frog themed unit study with frog pond bulletin boards and interactive frog related games, activities and projects.
Creating a Frog Themed Unit Study
A classroom full of frogs and frog themed learning activities
When I begin the frog unit study, the classroom is bare. Hour by hour and day by day the room fills with a frog pond theme environment that the children and I create together. As we read about frogs and observe frogs down at the frog pond we notice more and more details and add them to all areas of the classroom until it is filled with frog themed art, science, music, social studies, games, projects and more.
Photo Credit: Frog Pond
on Grandma's Graphics, Public Domain
Setting the Frog Pond Theme
Turning a Classroom into a Frog Pond of Learning
One day I decided to turn my classroom into a frog pond. The walls were already bue. There were bulletin boards on three of the four walls with a chalkboard on the fourth wall. The during the first week of school the children had been experimenting with mixing yellow and blue to make green paint. It was easy to teach them how to cut the paper into long strips for Cat-O'Nine Tails and round lily pad for frogs to sit on. We made the bulletin boards look like frog ponds.
Photo Credit: Frogs and Cattails
From Clipart Mountian Used by Permission
Singing with Frogs on Logs
Five Green and Speckled Frogs on Logs
One of our favorite activities at circle time is singing and acting out the words to the song Five Green and Speckled Frogs. Five children are chosen to be frogs each day. The five frogs sit on a large cardboard tube, designed for creating concrete pillars.These tubes come in 4 foot lengths so the kids will need to sit very close together at the beginning.
To make the frog log more stable and to make it look more like a log, add papier mache made from grocery bags and covered in a couple of layers of polyurethane.
The children jump off the log one at a time into the frog pond rug with each verse until all of the frogs have jumped off the log.
Log for the Five Green and Speckled Frogs
Concrete Form Tube Frog's Log
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SONOCO |
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Minwax Only $17.49 |
Frogs, Frogs and More Frogs
More frog themed activities and games for the Frog Unit Study
Frog Unit Study: Hopping to LearnFictional Frogs
Fun Frog Stories
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Dover Publications |
Frog Themed Story Hour
Reading about Frogs
Each day after recess the children gather on the rug for story hour. The story I chose for our frog unit study was Grandfather Frog by Thornton Burgess. The children love the story for the tale it tells. I love the story because it introduces the children to the animals that live in the frog's neighborhood and draws them even more into the frog's habitat.
Grandfather Frog
A story about frogs by Thornton Burgess
The stories by Thornton Burgess, such as Grandfather Frog by Thornton Burgess, are written in simple enough sentence structure and vocabulary for most children to read on their own by the end of first grade. Don't let that stop you from reading it to them, however. Children love to have stories read to them over and over. They will be delighted when they are finally able to read these frog stories themselves.
Observing and Creating a Nature Journal of Frogs
The Art and Science of Illustrating Frogs
With his amazingly simple and vivid illustrations and direct prose, Jim Arnosky's book All about Frogs is an ideal introduction to the science of frogs. I read this book often to the children during our study of frogs.
All About Frogs
A Non-fiction book about Frogs by Jim Arnosky
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Scholastic Inc. Only $5.99 |
Watercolor Frogs for your Nature Journal
Painting frogs
We use Jim Arnosky's illustrations as inspiration for writing in our nature journals. We look carefully at the illustrations each day before heading down to the frog pond and then again when we return in order to improve our artistic techniques.
It takes time and patience to paint a frog with watercolors. Sometimes you must use very washed out colors such as the tall grasses behind this frog. Sometimew you will be using dark green and waiting for it to dry in order to add the black spots or the white highlights.
Photo Credit: Frog
Available on Allposters
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