Fighting frogs quarrel and quibble all day long. When a heavy rain storm forces them to work together as a team. This book is a good lesson on friendship and cooperation.

Materials

Circles cut in 3-5 sizes

Vocabulary

• Quarrel and quibble ( to fight and argue)
• Bickering (another word for fighting and arguing)
• Definitely (to show that I don’t have to do what you say with your voice)
• Subsided (backed off and went down)

Before Reading the Story

Begin a discussion about friendship. That having friends is a nice thing. There are many things that you can do better with a friend than all by yourself. Ask the children if they can think of anything that they enjoy doing with their friends? (I like when my friend pushes me on the swing. I like when Jamie helps me put on the dressups and zippers me. I like Frank cause he helps me draw my name).

Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; shows progress in developing friendships with peers.

Explain to the children that friends cooperate with each other. Ask them to help define what cooperation means. (When me and Jose play together in blocks. When I asked Raya for the red crayon and she gave it to me).

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; shows increasing abilities to use compromise and discussion in working, playing, and resolving conflicts with peers.

Introduce the book and explain that this is a story about some frogs who did not want to cooperate.

Reading the Story

On the page where there is only one rock left and there the frogs huddled together, ask the children what they think will happen next?

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

After Reading the Story

Play Thumbs up-thumbs down with the children. Make up scenarios or things that you have seen the children in your class do. If it is a positive cooperative act, the children give a thumbs up. If it is a negative act, the children give a thumbs down. (Barney asked Alfred for a car and Alfred gave him one. Kerry grabbed the crayon from Lee and said “I want this now” Kim asked if she could paint at the easel and Ann said she could be next.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; increases in sustained interactions with peers by helping, sharing, and discussion.

Discovery

Show the children the page in the story where the toad appears before them. Explain to the children that frogs and toads are similar but different. https://kidzone.ws/lw/frogs/facts8.htm. Show the children pictures of frogs and toads to look at and compare. If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where a frog or toad can be caught, bring one in for the day for the children to examine.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops increased ability to observe and discuss common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects and materials.

Music and Movement

Sing 5 Little Speckled Frogs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziGG_L9C12o Let the children take turns acting out the frogs.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Sing Mmm ah Went the Little Green Frog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwU3beZ9kcw.

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; progresses in clarity of pronunciation and towards speaking in sentences of increasing length and grammatical complexity.

Sing You Sing a Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTmoAobX5mY. Children can help make up actions to do with the song.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & problem Solving; develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem.

Blocks

Have the children build a pond using the blocks. Can they make the pond in a pattern? Encourage them to add blocks to be a speckled frog and they can pretend to be frogs jumping.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games or using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.

Art

Put paper on the easel and tell the children that they are to do cooperative paintings where they work with a friend to make something beautiful.

Creative Art/Art; begins to understand and share opinions about artistic products and experiences. AND Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; increases abilities to sustain interactions with peers by helping, sharing, and discussing.

Library and Writing

Write each child’s name on an index card. Put the cards on the table along with markers. Encourage the children to find their name and to practice writing the names of their friends onto a piece of paper.

Literacy/Early Writing; progresses from using scribbles, shapes, or pictures to represent ideas, to using letter-like symbols, to copying or writing familiar words such as their own name. AND Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; progresses in abilities to use writing, drawing, and art tools, including pencils, markers, chalk, paint brushes, and various types of technology.

Sand and Water

Water in the table and rubber frogs. Add a stick that floats or a plastic lid that floats along with a rock for the frogs to sit upon. How many frogs can float on the log or sit on the rock? If you do not have frogs, use green one-inch cubes as frogs.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story. AND Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine, separate, and name “how many” concrete objects.

Dramatic Play

Math & Manipulatives

Cut out circles in 3-5 sizes. Remind the children that in the story the pond got bigger and fuller of water when the thunderstorm began. Put one of the largest circles on the table and ask the child if he/she can put the next smaller circle on top and then the next smaller and then the next smaller and then the smallest. Do with squares and triangles also.

Mathematics/ Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows progress in matching, sorting, putting in series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as shape or size.

Outdoor Play

Play Leap Frog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj0JBiknaPg Have 2 or 3 children spread out and hunch down very low. The other children then jump over them using their back as support. Take turns being the frogs and the rocks.

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; shows increasing levels of proficiency, control, and balance in walking, climbing, running, jumping, hopping, skipping, marching, and galloping.

Transitions

Ask the children of things they enjoy doing with a friend. Write their responses and hang it on the wall.

Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; shows progress in developing friendships with peers.

Resources