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Teaching Day-by-Day: Fun with...Frogs!
September: Our focus this month is on frogs because they are everywhere...or nearly everywhere...they live on every continent of the world, except one!
- Week One - Getting Started
- Make a KWHL chart in four columns on a big piece of chart or butcher paper (or cut two paper bags open and tape them together). Use a felt marker to list all the things students Know about frogs in the "K" column.
- Help students list all the questions they have about frogs and write them in the "W" column (what we Want to know). Have students think about what they don't know as well and all the things they wonder about.
- In the "H" column, write all the "How's" your students can come up with – (How we can learn it) – the different ways they can do research to learn more about frogs – to find information and answers to the questions they asked in the "W" column.
- Have students draw a "before" picture of what a frog looks like and list the common colors of frogs. Later on, students will draw another picture to show what they have learned.
- Ask students to look up the terms frog and toad, to discover the differences between the two. Also look up polliwog to see what this word means. Have each student make a Venn diagram labeling each circle "frog" or "toad" and writing similarities in the overlapping parts of the circle.
- Read the book All About Frogs by Jim Arnosky (Scholastic, 2002) – or another nonfiction book about frogs – to your class. Add any new information they learn to the "L" column on the KWHL chart.
- See pictures of rare frog species when you have your class visit zoltantakacs.com To build critical literacy, help students find out who Dr. Zoltan Takacs is and whether or not they should believe what they see and read at this site. Have students send him a message.
- Visit www.froguts.com where your class can do a virtual frog dissection. With your students, take the 10-question pre-test and the quiz that follows the dissection.
- Read the book The Caterpillar and the Polliwog by Jack Kent (Simon & Schuster, 1985) to your class. Have your students make a labeled drawing that compares the stages in the lives of both creatures. Discuss how they are alike and how they are different.
- Visit kids.yahoo.com to find out more about amphibians. Then pair your students, have each pair select a species of frog from the list at this site and invite them to learn more by clicking on the appropriate link.
- Have pairs of students make a concept map or web of everything they learned about the species they chose yesterday. Ask pairs to write a report about their species. Review reports, conference with pairs and have students revise in their best handwriting or word processing.
- Have pairs of students draw an "after" picture of what their frog looks like now that they have studied it carefully. Have them label their pictures to show what they have learned.
- Explore the world of imaginary frogs with your students as you share with them the book Tuesday by David Wiesner (Houghton Mifflin, 1997). Do a second reading of this (almost) wordless picture book and have students take turns retelling the story.
- Help small groups of students create plays about frogs and perform them for the class. Have each group present a play in a different genre, for example – a frog biography, a nonfiction play, a frog folktale, a frog fantasy, a frog mystery...
- Read a chapter a day to your class from Commander Toad in Space by Jane Yolen (Penguin Putnam, 1996). Talk about the differences between the fantasy genre (characteristics of this book) and nonfiction (characteristics of All About Frogs by Jim Arnosky).
- Do a shared writing activity with students when you have finished reading them Commander Toad in Space by Jane Yolen. Help students create a sequel to the story and send it to Yolen's publisher with a letter of explanation.
- Read the poem "The Frog Wore Red Suspenders" by Jack Prelutsky (from the book by the same name, Greenwillow, 2002) to your students. Ask the students to memorize the poem and perform it for family members or for another class.
- Ask your music teacher to help your class learn to sing "Froggie Went A-Courtin'" Or go to www.walkingoliver.com to hear and view animated lyrics. Once students know the lyrics and can sing the song by heart, challenge them to write new lyrics.
- Add new information students have learned about frogs to the "L" column on the KWHL chart. Review what has been learned and which questions are still unanswered. Add any new questions students have.
- Gather all the Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel (HarperCollins) or Mercer Mayer's books like A Boy, A Dog and a Frog (Dial, 1979). Have students practice reading or telling these stories to prepare for sharing with a class of first or second graders.
- Read Aristophanes' play "The Frogs" and have the children research early Greek dramatists. Are many of the same theatre devices still used in today's dramatic works?
- Make predictions with your students about what these sayings mean – frog prince, frog in my throat, leap-frog, etc. Then have students ask their family members to see what they think these sayings mean. How close were their guesses to those of their family members?
- Make a class book called Frogger's Digest with the reports students wrote two weeks ago. Use green wallpaper for a cover and have students alphabetize the species, number each page and create an "About the Authors" page and table of contents. Leave blank pages for reader comments.
- Set up a check-out procedure for Frogger's Digest and encourage students to take it home to share with their families. Ask each family to write a note to the class on the blank pages at the end of the book telling what they liked about it or learned from reading it.
- Teach the class about cinquain poems and read some examples. Have the students write their own cinquain poem about frogs.
- Ask the art teacher to work with your students to explore the use of watercolor, colored pencils, tissue paper and collage to illustrate their cinquain poems. Display their pictures and poems for the school.
- Look back at the KWHL chart you started on Day 1. In the "L" column (what we learned), write everything your students learned in the past two weeks. Have them read what they learned this month as they did their research and completed this month's activities.
- Share the KWHL chart with the school by posting it on a bulletin board or on the wall outside your classroom. Or, have small groups of students share and explain the chart with students in other classes telling what they learned and how they learned it.
- Research frogs' legs as a food delicacy. In what countries can you find frogs' legs on the menu?
- How do frogs' eyes work? Ask your students to use a print science encyclopedia to research this. Be sure they include how frogs' eyes differ from that of other animals and from humans.
Week Two - Learning More About Frogs
Week Three - Fun with Frog Knowledge
Week Four - Sharing Frog Knowledge
Week Five - Summing Up
Karen Bromley is a Professor of Literacy in the School of Education and Human Development at Binghamton University in Binghamton, NY where she teaches graduate courses in literacy, language arts and children's literature.
August/September 2003, Vol.34, No.1
