Adaptations - Frogs and Polliwogs

Focus: Frogs and toads can live in a wide range of habitats and temperatures because of their unique physical adaptations and specialized life cycles.

Materials Checklist
Picture Parade (slide show, projector, screen, or pictures of frogs and toads, chart of frog life cycle, tape of frog calls, tape player)
Merry Metamorphosis (Merry Metamorphosis script)
Frog or Tadpole? (signs and pictures with characteristics of frogs, tadpoles, and neither; optional-felt board and felt features)
Frog Jumps (measuring tape, paper, pencils)
Spring Serenade (matching sets of calling cards)
Frog Hunt (white dishpans, clipboards, pencils, nets, Frog Field Notes sheets)
Frog Features (5/6 ELF) (frog features student sheet, Frogs and Toads of VT & NH chart, Frog Field Marks chart, frog slides and script, frog call recordings tape, tape player, slide projector, screen, pencils, crayons, colored pencils)

Supplementary Reference Materials (Slide show scripts: Grades K-2, Grades 3-6, Frog Call cards, Frog and Tadpole stencils, Tadpole song, Frogs of Vermont and New Hampshire, Shortened 'Merry Metamorphosis script, Frog Field Note sheet, Frog and Toad Life Cycle chart, 5/6 ELF Activity: Frog Features with Field Mark chart)

Additional Reading/Resources
Prince of the Pond, by Donna Jo Napoli, Dutton Books, 1992.
Frog websites
1) North American Amphibian Monitoring Program
2) Amphibian Species Identification Guide
3) Toad and Frogs of Minnesota site for kids with frog calls.
VINS Outreach program on Cold Blooded Critters. (ELF schools get a 30 % discount!)
For the legend and a recipe for a traditional New England cookie called a "Joe Frogger", visit Yankee magazine's website.
Amphibian Status Overview

ELF Notes - Template for newsletter on Frogs and Polliwogs
* Word document * pdf file

For Younger Children
Many of the activities in VINS's new Small Wonders book can be used in ELF, too. To find appropriate activities for children aged 3-6, click here.

Teaching suggestions

You might want to introduce the workshop by dimming the lights and playing the frogs tape, then have children guess the topic we'll be studying in this lesson.

This unit is most fun when the children can see frogs in their pond habitat. However, all activities except the Frog Hunt are easily done in the classroom or school yard, if a field trip isn't possible.

Merry Metamorphosis
Add props so each child has some part to play:
Sticks with blue streamers for water, sticks with green streamers are plants, sticks with bubble wrap with black dots inside for frog eggs, sticks with googly eyes for Giant water bug. plastic bugs that frogs eat, and a few children to be the transforming polliwogs.
Plastic garbage bags cut up make great tadpole tails – kids can tie them around their waist.

In the poem, you could have a big fish come along to scare away the beetle instead of the wind blowing away the egg mass.

Frog or Tadpole?
Ahead of time, create simple felt pieces of body parts for both a frog and a tadpole and place these in labeled envelopes. Write other characteristics like “hops on land” or “will die out of water” on 3"x5" cards along with trick characteristics like “furry” or “big teeth”.
Divide the group into two teams, one Frogs and the other Tadpoles. Give each team a felt board and a simple felt oval body shape. Have teams think of one amazing adaptation of their team's life stage and make up a team cheer. E.g. Tadpoles breathe through gills – cheer is: Go Gills, Go Gills!! Then read the envelopes and cards. If a team can explain why that characteristic is an important adaptation for their life stage, they get it. Piece by piece each team will construct a felt board model of their critter.

Going Outside
Have kids hop like frogs to the gathering spot.

Moving Meals
Saying “1-2-3 Food for me” may take too long, a quick “Ribbit” works.

Spring Serenade
Start by having everyone practice all five songs – then give out the calling cards.

You may want to use the terms “singers” and “listeners” instead of “male” and “female”. Then have the singers go to the outside of the circle or “pond” while the listeners gather in the center of the circle. OR, have singers line up on one side of playgroup, and have listeners line up about 25' away with eyes closed and "bumpers up." Singers sing, listeners then walk slowly to find mate, hands in front of them to protect from bumps.

Frog Hunt
Be sure to scout out a frog pond ahead of time and get permission to visit the site. Is there easy access for everyone?

Sharing Circle
You can create a group Round Robin story of the field trip to the pond with everyone getting a chance to share their excitement and finds!

Extensions
For younger kids, try this finger play. It works just like “This Little Piggie” so you point to each of the five fingers as you say the rhyme:
Five little frogs sitting in a row,
The bullfrogs voice is oh so low (imitate sound).
The spring peeper frog says peep, peep, peep.
The trill of the toad is oh so sweet (imitate sound).
The wood frog's song is like the quack of a duck (imitate sound)
The green frog sounds like a banjo string you pluck (imitate sound).
(From a Wetland Curriculum website posted by the Toronto Zoo: www.torontozoo.com)

Learning Goals

Concepts/Ideas:

• Frogs and toads, both amphibians, have similarities and differences. Like other amphibians, they live part of their lives in water and part on land. In each life stage they have adaptations that allow them to survive in particular surroundings.
• Most frogs and toads mate in water in spring or early summer, and females lay eggs in water. Eggs develop into legless tadpoles or “polliwogs” with a tail and gills and over time metamorphose into tailless adults with lungs and legs.
• Frogs, like most predators, eat live prey. Special adaptations make it possible for them to catch moving insects within their reach.
• Each species of frog has a different courtship call that the male sings to attract females of his species.

Vocabulary:
adaptations, amphibians, frog, toad, egg, tadpole, adult, herbivore, carnivore, metamorphosis, prey, gills, frog calls, habitat (definitions)

Skills:

• Active listening and observation to learn about special adaptations of frogs, toads and tadpoles
• Listening and role-playing to understand the stages of growth and development of frogs from egg to adult
• Comparing and contrasting characteristics of frogs and tadpoles
• Identifying through role-playing, investigation and observation, frogs' adaptations in different stages of development
• Listening to and comparing calls made by different species of frogs

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S30) Frogs and toads are living animals that need food, water, and air to survive. They live part of their life in water and part on land.

Grades 1-2 (S30, S31) Frogs and toads have body parts that enable them to survive in water and on land at different stages of life. Grogs undergo stages of development and change from egg to adult. Frogs come from male and female parents.

Grades 3-4 (S30, S31, S38) Frogs and toads have physical and behavioral characteristics that enable them to survive in the particular places they live during each stage of life. They are amphibians, and the details of their life cycles are unique to their kind. Frogs and toads, as all living things, have common stages of development. They can be differentiated by certain physical characteristics.

Grades 5-6 (S38) Different kinds of toads and frogs may live together in one area. They are grouped according to similarities in body structure and identified by distinguishing physical and behavioral characteristics.

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