Feed the Frog

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Ha, this activity is probably more suited to a creepy-crawly time of year like Halloween, but how do you keep a 4-year-old busy on the day before Christmas? With some good, spider fun, it turns out!

Travis spotted an old trove of spider rings in our craft bin, so we set up this game.

We needed a tissue box, and I let Travis go to town emptying the box and playing with the leftover tissues – something I wouldn’t normally encourage, but every once in a while, you need a sacrificial tissue box.

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Ideally, use a green box. Ours had streaks of green as well as other colors, so I guess looked more like one of those tropical bright frogs – why not!

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I made two big eyes for the frog, simply drawing black circles onto white paper and taping to the frog. Cut out the plastic around the hole of the tissue box, and your frog is ready to eat.

Present your child with the “frog”, a pair of tongs, and a set of spiders, and challenge him or her to feed the frog. Tongs are great for fine motor skills!

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Travis would happily have done this all day. To throw in a little education, I asked if he could think of a pattern to feed the frog. “Black, orange, black, orange,” he suggested. Yes!

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Next we tried rolling a dice, taking turns and feeding the frog the appropriate number of spiders.

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When our frog got full, we simply dumped him out and started over.

Travis wanted other things for froggie to eat, so we found red pom poms, which he decided were poisonous bugs.

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He even suggested we make a little mouth for froggie that could open and close, to keep all the food inside.

In sum, a great way to keep your kids entertained!

Phoneme Week 7: FR

FR week a

As with the SH phoneme, summer has us moving slow, meaning we spent about a month working our way through fun FR words and activities rather than a week. Travis latched on right away to the rather odd “fruh” sound, telling me that frog has a fruh, but tree doesn’t! I love seeing him grasp the concept of phonemes. We traced our F and R Alphabet Wipe-Clean Cards and then embarked on some learning fun.

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Phonics Book of the Week: Frog on a Log. This silly phonics book actually doesn’t have a single other FR word aside from the frog in the title (it rhymes many -og words instead), but FRog is repeated throughout, making it a quick sight word for Travis. And how could we pick any other book, since frogs were our main theme? Read on!

Guiding Theme: FRog

To jump right in to the frog main theme, I taught Travis how to play leap frog. We also pulled out rubber frog bath toys, who joined in bathtime for nearly 2 weeks before he tired of them!

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We listened:

We Made:

  • A Paper Plate FrogPaper Plate Frog (9)
  • A Feed the Frog. Travis loved first painting a tissue box green, but when this didn’t make it quite great enough, we added green construction paper with glue the next morning. Feed Frog (3)Glued-on googly eyes complete your little frog. Then have fun feeding your frog plastic insects or spiders. Feed Frog (5).JPGTongs make the game great for fine motor skills.Feed Frog (2)
  • Also check out old frog games of ours, including a DIY Frog Pond and Frog Rock.

We Learned:

  • Usborne’s Beginner non-fiction book on Tadpoles and Frogs was the perfect reader for our science of the week on a frog’s life cycle. If you’re ambitious, you might consider buying a grow-a-frog kit!
  • For math of the week, we had fun measuring the leaps of frogs! We pulled out a large sheet of butcher paper and took turns leaping (i.e. throwing) the frogs. FR math (2)We marked a lily pad wherever one landed, and then used a ruler to see how many inches each frog had jumped. Travis had so much fun that he was busy drawing lily pads and tossing frogs long after the activity was officially “over.”FR math (3)

We Visited:

  • A local nature preserve was the perfect place to look for frogs. We spotted this big fellow outside…Audobon (1).JPG …as well as some in their rehabilitation room. Spotting tadpoles helped reinforce what we’d learn in our science of the week about the frog life cycle. Meanwhile, we soaked up plenty of FResh air while we were there.FR week (7)

We Ate:

Other Words of the Week:

  • Frame: We pulled out the chalkboard paint and had a blast painting a simple wooden frame. This craft would make a fantastic gift. Perhaps for a FRiend?Chalkboard Frame (6)
  • Fraction: Make fraction plates! Keep it simple for a preschooler, but you can also talk about fractions as you divide food all week – pizza slices into eighths, for example, or a sandwich in half.Plate Fractions (5)
  • Free: This was my personal favorite word of the unit, since it led us to come up with ways to have free (or nearly-so) fun. Examples from our summer bucket list of free enjoyment included: a car wash;car wash (1).JPG browsing a farmers market;FR week (19).JPG blowing bubbles;FR week (11) taking an inch hike (look for things that are one inch or less, surprisingly harder than you’d think!);FR week (22) having a shaving cream throw-down (free if you steal Daddy’s canister);FR week (26) and a picnic in a park.FR week (28)
  • Freeze: A perfect word for a hot summer month. First we simply FRoze a tray of ice cubes – and then had fun thawing it! FR week (17)You can also play a good old-fashioned game of freeze dance.
  • Fresh: We had fun exploring the properties of fresh vs. salt water. This is also the perfect chance to introduce kids to the wonders of fresh homemade bread – fresh pretzels were the perfect yummy example. Then – perhaps the most magical moment of our FR unit – we picked fresh berries at a local farm!FR week (18)
  • Friend: Here’s the perfect chance to talk about the meaning of the word friend, since preschoolers are beginning to form early bonds and playing together instead of parallel play. One cute book to read is That’s What Friends are For by Florence Parry Heide. So have a playdate this week, and while you’re at it, sing the silly song Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends.
  • Frown: We took advantage of homemade playdough to make frowny faces. I added FReckles too! Making faces, whether in playdough, clay, or marker is a great vocab builder for expressions, emotions, and facial features.FR week (31)
  • Frost: Even though it was wildly out of season, Travis loved watching clips of Frosty the Snowman. FR week (24)Then we made homemade frost on our windows!