Although the whole frog life cycle may be a bit sophisticated for very young preschoolers , they are definitely old enough to understand that a tadpole turns into a frog. This is an easy and adaptable activity, if you need a frog activity to follow up click here for a cute frog puppet!

1. Gather your materials. You will need some green paint, a paper plate, some red paper, a googly eye and some streamers (paper cut in strips would work well too). If you want you can also use some sparkles- this seems to be the only thing my son wants to do at art time lately!
2. Start by painting your paper plate, we are using a sponge but a brush, or even finger painting would work.
3. While your child paints cut some streamers into 6-8 inch pieces. I cut 4 but ended up only using 3.
4. When they are finished painting let the paper plate dry.
5. Hand them the streamers and have them paint them , we used roller paints on each.
6. Add glitter if you want.
7. Let the streamers dry.
8. While everything is drying, cut some lips, I made a heart and cut off the bottom.
9. Now when things require drying time you run the risk of loosing your little artists, my son happily said “mama you glue!” so I did. He was just as proud of his project in the end , but you can also put it aside and complete it when the mood strikes!
10. Add the glue for the streamers.
11. Add the streamers- I added 4 , but took one off. Also this picture shows them all spread out, I ended up grouping them together to make one tail.
12. Add the lips
13. Add the eye and let dry!

Song

Five green and speckled frogs
sat on a speckled log
eating the most delicious bugs
yum yum !

One jumped into the pool
where it was nice and cool
now there are 4 green speckled frogs
ribbit ribbit!

Keep going until no frogs left!

Books!

“From Tadpole to Frog” by Wendy Pfeffer is another gem from the “Let’s- Read-And-Find-Out” series. It goes into great detail without offering too much for young readers. When I was reading it to my 2 year old, I skipped some pages, it’s a little long for him still but 3-5 year olds are perfect age for this non fiction book. The illustrations are interesting and kept my wiggly man into the book when the text went above his head.