Keeping Them Curious: Frog Edition

I know it isn’t spring yet, but I’m hopping in to bring you this “Keeping Them Curious” frog theme anyway! 🐸

This “Keeping Them Curious” series is designed to support your thematic teaching and help you inspire an inquisitive culture in your classroom.

In each issue, I will cover a theme by giving you some tidbits and trivia to share with your students and links to relevant resources from my site and across the web.

Frogs are such a fun theme in the primary grade, and these resources will really help you make a splash! Kids really enjoy learning about these cute amphibians—and many have background knowledge and experience to bring into your unit. Like other animal themes, frogs offer opportunities for exploring vocabulary and science topics in a kid-friendly and engaging way!

You can find the previous editions all in one spot over here so you can refer back as needed!

Did You Know? Frog Facts for Your Class

Here are a few fun frog facts you can use to capture the curiosity of your little pollywogs!

🐸 Earth is home to thousands of species of frogs that vary in size, sound, and coloration. These tiny frogs, found in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, only grow to about 7 millimeters!

🐸 The largest frogs on Earth, goliath frogs, live near the equator in Africa (specifically Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea). Growing to be over a foot in body size, male goliath frogs use their exceptionally strong back legs to push rocks around to build nests for tadpoles.

🐸 Ribbit, ribbit, woof? Different frog species make a wide variety of sounds. These barking tree frogs sound an awful lot like dogs!

🐸 While most of us know that frogs and toads use their long, sticky tongues to catch insects, scientists at Georgia Tech have explored how these amphibians’ special saliva helps them do this. It turns out that their saliva changes consistency very quickly—from liquid to sticky. Learn more and see some cool slow-motion footage of toad tongues in this video from Deep Look.

🐸 A frog’s bulging eyes also help it eat! Once its sticky tongue delivers the insect into the frog’s mouth, the amphibian blinks. Its eye muscles are specially made to push down into the mouth, pushing the insect off the tongue and down the frog’s throat!

Make Time to Giggle!

Simple jokes for kids are a great way to encourage students to explore the nuances of language! This frog joke provides an opportunity for a quick discussion on words with more than one meaning.

Blog Posts for Your Frog Theme

Planning a frog theme? Here’s a collection of websites and videos that will help you bring a multimedia element to your unit!

Add age-appropriate music and fine motor practice to your amphibian theme with these subtraction activities that center on the song (and fingerplay) “Five Green and Speckled Frogs.” This post also includes a free task box activity!

More Resources for Your Frog Unit

Looking for ready-to-use frog resources? You can shop here in the My Happy Place website shop or browse my TPT shop. You’ll find a thematic frog unit with an informational slideshow and lots of printable activities, digital frog activities for use on a variety of learning platforms, and a set of CVC Frog Puzzles for thematic phonics practice.

Finally, as you transition from frog activities into other life cycle themes, check out this post that is packed with engaging life cycle activities!