We’ve made it to amphibians in our summer study of animals and their classifications. Because we spent quite a bit of time last summer on frogs and toads, I hadn’t intended to spend a lot of time on it this summer. But it’s always fun to study tadpoles and polliwogs.
So I picked up a book at our library, printed off some notebooking pages, and sat down with some cool science goodies that my mom sent us a few weeks ago.
First, I read the book to them while they held up the piece that matched the story. Then, I let them look through the book and play with each piece of the frog’s life cycle.
After the kids had touched, held, and played with the pieces for awhile, I pulled out our notebooking page. They studied each stage and then drew it in the boxes of their notebooking sheet. Most of the “art” was pretty easy.
Egg: draw a circle and color a dot in the center; for a spawn, draw several eggs with sides touching.
Tadpole: draw a circle; draw a tale; add a face
With back legs: draw a circle and tale; add back legs and a face
Front and back legs: draw a circle and tale; add back legs, front legs, and a face
Frog: (this is where it got more difficult)
Both of them bawked when I suggested drawing a frog. So we got out our I Can Draw Animals book, turned to the frog page, and drew two very cute frogs!
But even after the lesson was over, it wasn’t really over. Middlest had all sorts of imaginary adventures for the little frog family; and every time I get them put away, they show up somewhere else.
Disclaimer: This post contains a link to my consultant site for Usborne books.
