Reading Group Guide
ABOUT THE BOOK
A frog song is a celebration of enough clean water, plants, and insects to eat. Since the time of the dinosaurs, frogs have added their ribbits and bellows to the music of the earth. Frogs are astonishing in their variety and crucial to ecosystems. It is our job to keep our planet clean and fruitful so that frogs can continue to sing throughout the ages. Onomatopoeic text and stunning illustrations introduce young readers to these fascinating and important creatures, from Oklahoma to Chile to Australia.
USING FROG SONG WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
Frog Song is appropriate for grades P to 3. The Standards included below are examples from the first grade standards; teachers may want to visit the Common Core State Standards Web site to apply their own gradelevel equivalents. The subheadings and numerical references will help users easily locate the coordinating standards for specific grade levels.
Reading Standards for Informational Text K–5
RI.1.3 Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
RI.1.4 Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text.
RI.1.10 With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
Writing Standards K–5
W.1.2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.
Speaking and Listening Standards K–5
SL.1.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
SL.1.4 Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly
Pre-reading activities
Have students write or share what they already know about frogs. Have they ever seen a frog? Where did they see the frog? Did they touch the frog? What did it feel like or sound like?
Show a picture of two different types of frogs found in the book. Ask students to each write or share two characteristics they notice about the frogs. Then make a list together as a class. This will help heighten their awareness to similarities and differences throughout the book as they learn about all the types of frogs featured in the text.
Show a map of the world. Place a push pin where each frog in the book is from. Keep the map visible while reading the book and throughout the lesson.
VOCABULARY
Have students write and/or draw the definitions for the vocabulary words below:
Beech, bellow, bladder, bog, burrow, cocoon, crouch, dinosaur, emerges, flood, forest, freeze, frog, hatch, insect, mature, moisture, nest, snout, species, squirm, tadpole, thaw, trill
SCIENCE
Make It Real
If possible, visit a pond, zoo, or pet store to hear a song, see a hop, or observe eggs or tadpoles. Online sites listed at the back of the book lead to recorded frog songs and the discovery that frogs drink and breathe through their skin.
Make a Difference
Share the Author's Note about frogs being endangered. Have your students research how they can help frogs in their community. Check to see if your class can participate in a local zoo or museum program. How important is clean water and air to frogs with their special skin?
Be Creative
Make your very own classroom science book about frogs. Consider making this a small-group activity. There are eleven diff erent types of frogs in the book. Have each student/group select and research one type of frog mentioned in the book and write three sentences about it. They can pull information from the text, from the "Frogs of the World" pages, from their own observations of the pictures in the book, or do extended research in their school library. Then ask students to draw their own picture of the frog and its habitat. Ask your students what they imagine that frog would sound like. Have them select another onomatopoeic word to describe the sound they imagine.
Gather all the pages your students have created and read the book together as a class.
CULTURE / GEOGRAPHY
Create a worksheet with fi ve or six blank sections (see below).
There are frogs from eleven diff erent habitats around the world featured in Frog Song. Use this as an opportunity to teach students about those cultures. Reference the map with the push pins you made in the pre-reading activity.
Have students write the name of the frog for each location and the capital of that state, territory, or country. Then have students write a fact relating to population, art, music, history, etc. about each place.
1. Australian desert
2. Borneo
3. Canada
4. Chile
5. Costa Rica
6. Ecuador
7. Ethiopia
8. New Zealand
9. Northeastern Australia
10. Oklahoma, United States
11. Spain
FUN ACTIVITIES
Make a frog puppet!
1. Fold a piece of green paper in thirds, forming a long rectangle.
2. Fold the long rectangle into fourths, making a "W" shape. This "W" shape will be the frog.
3. Draw eyes on the frog (or glue on googly eyes).
4. Cut out a long tongue from red paper and glue the end of it in the frog's mouth.
5. Put your thumb in the frog's lower jaw, and put your other fingers in the upper jaw.
6. You now have a frog puppet that has a VERY big mouth!
Instructions from enchantedlearning.com
Write a song!
Have each student write two things that make them happy and then they can pick their top choice to share with the class. Write a classroom song together about what makes the kids happy. Maybe even add each student's name to the song for a personal touch. If you can put it to music and record it, even better! If your students made the frog puppets as well, your students can use the puppets while singing the song!
Leap like a frog!
After a nice long lesson about the frogs of the world, your kids deserve a break! Why not play leap frog? Have students line up on one side of the classroom and then have them leap to the other side of the classroom. And try to sneak in a lesson about how frogs leap! If you were able to record your class song, now is the perfect time to play it!
