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Exploring The Frog Life Cycle with Toddlers and Preschoolers

Yes we’re back with the frogs again – seeing frogs in situ in a pond, lake or stream is a great way to introduce children to the environment and the concept of life cycles. Observing from a distance of the pond edge children are able to see the frog life cycle in process. This week saw the arrival of the frogs enmass and also the vocal cues that they were starting to mate

Exploring the Frog Life Cycle with Toddlers and Preschoolers

So off we went to look at the frogs – and there were more than we had ever seen all in the same spot in the pond. J stood in-front of them looking and counting them (missing out number 13 each time) we had 15 well 16 when he counted and 15 when I did.

Learning about frog life cycle

So we’ve gone and visited them hourly all week… We’ve seen pairs of frogs – J now has the word mating in his vocabulary and he knows that they are making eggs – we haven’t gone into detail about how but he asked “Where do the eggs come from” so after finding a pair of frogs I explained that they were mating and will then make eggs – he accepted this and every time we see 2 frogs together even side by side he says that they are mating.

Frogs mating
J knows that pairs of frogs are mating and that this produces the frog spawn

As the week progressed we returned and on Wednesday we discovered Frog Spawn – you can imagine the joy on a 2 and a half year old’s face to finally see what he has read about in books and mimicked with water beads.

Frog Spawn
J spots the frog spawn

Because our pond doesn’t have any fish in and is shaded we are leaving the frog spawn in place to grow and let the tadpoles develop – we now have to check back almost hourly to see whether there is any more spawn (last count was 6 clumps) or if tadpoles have arrived. I’m so excited to see the frog life cycle happen in front of our eyes.

We got this book from the library last week and it’s such a great one to go with our frog life cycle theme – J has already asked whether he can put the eggs in his water table – needed some explanation of no they need to live in the pond as the water is special – which he replied – we can take the water from the pond to the water table in his bucket – yes the logic of a 2 and a half year old is good. The Little Princess series of books we first met when looking at potty training books and they continue to be enjoyed as the characters are now familiar to J we really enjoy reading them and have been reading this one at least once a day after we’ve gone to see the latest developments in the pond.

This frog life cycle representation from Make do and Friend is really great and I’m going to be making one for our Spring journal with J.

Author
Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.

8 Comments

  1. What a wonderful post, we had so much frogspawn back in February, but the dry weather has soaked up their stagnant ponds and now there is little to be seen. I love all the learning and explanation that accompanies your posts. Thank you for sharing on Country Kids

  2. This is awesome! I love the thinking and processing of little ones. His questions and thoughts were so cute. Frogs are just coming back out around us but we will be able to start seeing more of them soon. I am going to have to check out that book!
    Thanks for sharing with the outdoor play party.

  3. My daughter loved the picture of the frog and she thought the frog spawn was ‘funny’. She is asking me to ask you to please put some photos of tadpoles up when they hatch (not sure that ‘hatch’ is the right word for frog spawn but I can’t think what else to use).

    1. We will be posting about the tadpoles as soon as they hatch (I think that’s the word for it) I can’t wait as at the moment we are checking hourly to see whether there are any 2 year olds don’t do waiting very well.

  4. Looks like a lot of fun. We’ve been out hunting for frog spawn for a couple of weeks now but the weather’s so up-and-down that they don’t seem to be mating here yet. We’re hoping to grow some tadpoles in our aquarium.

  5. I can imagine the excitement! My 3 year olds nursery collected some from our local pond, the kids were fascinated.

    Emma xx

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