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.
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.
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.
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.
I love the picture of the frog eggs! Great shot. Wish we had seen frog eggs this spring but our little ponds just did not cooperate this year.
Thanks so much for sharing this with my Pond link up!
It’s great having a pond and even better with frogs! Thanks for sharing this with our spring carnival! 🙂