Frog Song for Morning Meeting

Each morning we begin our day with Morning Meeting. As part of our Frog Unit Study, our Morning Meeting has a frog theme as well. We may greet each other with a froggy greeting such as hopping over to someone in the circle,  "Ribbit, Johnny." Johnny then hops over to someone else to greet the same way until all the children have been greeted. The morning message will be about frogs, the activity will be frog themed, we may share about our experiences visiting the frog pond or discuss our expectations of when we visit the frog pond later in the day.

In this article I will be describing one of the frog themed songs we sing for our Frog Unit Study Morning Meeting Activity.

I search for and collect frog songs to enhance learning throughout our frog unit study. The other day I was singing "All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir" with my K-1 class went it occured to me that it too could be adaped to the frog theme. What if at the end of the song instead of "clap their hands ..." we just chanted the sounds that frogs make "ribbit, ribbit ribbit..." to the rhythm. Clapping is so much fun that we just added the frog sounds to the claps.

Then we needed to change the words of the song to fit the frog theme.

All the frogs got a place in the Choir,

Some sing lower and some sing higher,

Some sing out loud on the lily pads

And some frog peep in the trees. Peep, peep, peep etc.

The next verses might end with:

And some frogs call from the reeds. Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit, etc.

And some frogs call from the shore. Croak, croak, croak etc.

And some frogs chant on the log. Chugarum, chugarum, chugarum. etc.

Once the children get the hang of singing the new frog song, we start creating the Frog Choir. When the children first came into the classroom they went right over to the Morning Message where they were instructed to place their names into one of three categories depending on how many syllables were in their names. These groups became the Spring Peepers, the Leopard Frogs and the Bullfrogs.

We can now use these groups to quickly divide our class into three groups for singing the frog song. Ask the three kinds of frogs to find their groups then we begin the song. When we get to the final part of the verse the Spring Peepers call out in a high frog voice, "peep, peep, peep" etc.The Leopard Frogs call out in a medium frog voice, "ribbit, ribbit, ribbit" etc. The Bullfrogs call out in a low frog voice, "Chugarum, chugarum, chugarum"

Photo Credit: Frog Cartoon
From Karen's Whimsy

Before you begin teaching your children the frog song, you might like to begin with the book and song that inspired this frog choir. The music for learning the tune is written in the back of the book. Read and sing the song, All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir with your children many times over a period of days, weeks and months so that they know the song very well. Then when you are ready to begin your unit on frogs they will quickly be able to adapt the words to the tune.

Morning Meeting at the Responsive Classroom
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