F is for Frog

Letter F Tub

We put together a tub with various items that start with F. Little Bit and Friend explored the bucket and talked about each word listening for the F sound.

 
Items in the F tub:

• frog
• feather
• flashlight
• firetruck
• flower
• flip-flop
• various size letter Fs
• fish
• fox
• four and five

Frog Pond Play

We played with pretend frogs in 4 different ways. Check out my post about our frog ponds. 

Frog Books and Activities

Hop Jump by Ellen Stoll Walsh

This is a fun book about a frog that wants to dance not jump and hop. After read we practiced our frog hop and checked to see who could jump the farthest. 

I found this fun game at the Dollar Store (sweet!) that is all about jumping frogs. Little Bit and Friend loved making the frogs jump. 

999 Frogs Wake Up

This is a cute book about a sleepy frog. The books does not include counting but you could create your own counting game with this book.

Frog and Fly by Jeff Mack

Frog and Fly is like a comic book split into six parts. After reading the story Little Bit tried her hand at eating like a frog. We used small toy insects and sticky slap toys. The sticky slap toys I found were in the shape of a lizard, I think the sticky hands would of words better but the lizard did the trick this time.

Little Bit loved pretending to be a frog with a sticky tongue.

Five Green and Speckled Frogs

Five Green and Speckled Frogs Song

*the words in this video are not the exact words from the book*

We read the book and then played the song from YouTube that is listed above. As the song played Little Bit used the frogs and log I made to act out the song. 

I created 5 frogs and placed them on popcycle sticks, then used a paper towel roll as a log. The frog fit into the small holes I cut until they were ready to jump into the pool. This was an easy and simple way to act out the game and very cute. 


I hope you enjoyed reading about the fun we had as we learned and played with frogs. There are so many great ideas for playing with frogs, below are a few sites that have great ideas for playing with frogs. 

Coffee Cups and Crayons has a great post about jumping like a frog. 

Walking By the Way has a great resource for counting with frogs. 

Activity Village has a printable available for Five Green and Speckled Frogs. 

There is are many different Frog Boards for Preschoolers on Pinterest. 

Frog Sensory Ponds

 

During our F is for Frog week we had Friend and Little Friend with us everyday to play. We played everyday with our frog pond. I decided to switch things up and present the pond in a different way each day. 

Day 1 - We played with the frog pond in a tub with water, rocks, foam lily pads and frogs. Friend said he was having fun several times. Since the bin was on the floor Little friend was able to play too.

Day 2 - The next day frog pond was in our water table. The rocks, lily pads and frogs were each in separate containers so that Little Bit and Friend could arrange them like they wanted. I only put water in to one section of the table. Little Bit and Friend used the dry area as land for the frogs to sit on.

Day 3 - On day three we talked about how frogs sometimes live in the mud. I set out a tub with dirt and water table with water. Friend and Little Bit quickly started adding the water to the dirt and making mud. Little Bit was the first one to touch the mud and not long after they were hiding the frogs in the mud then digging around trying to find them. The one word they used to describe the mud over, and over again was GROSS!! If they could of jumped in like the frogs they would have. :) The dirt came from our yard so it had leaves and sticks in it which added extra fun to the digging around.

I do believe this was their favorite frog pond :)

Day 4 - On the last day we played with our frogs in green goo (Obleck). Little Bit had never played with green goo so she enjoyed dipping, scooping and burying the frogs. We did not use the rocks for this bin, just the frogs and lily pads.

We had fun playing with the frogs in different ways. Very little changed with each of the bins but Little Bit and Friend enjoyed playing and exploring the different ponds.

Our Animal Wall

This summer we have learned all about different kinds of animals. Throughout the summer we have created different animals to add to our animal wall. Little Bit has loved making and adding animals. I had planned to make many more animals but we are moving this weekend and that has completely disrupted our daily routine. Because of the move we will need to take down our animal wall.

We have enjoyed our all and we may create a special wall at our new house to show off our art work. Each of the animals were made in different ways. Check out how we made each animal.

1. Bear - I used a print out of a bear and then gave Little Bit small pieces of brown fabric.

2. Snake - Little Bit and I used leaves we found to decorate our snake. Check out my Gail Gibbons - Virtual Book Club Linkup post.

3. Alligator - I cut a mother and baby alligator out of green paper. Then we colored with green and used small pieces of green construction paper to decorate each of the alligators.

4. Butterfly - First, Little Bit picked scrapbooking paper and cut it into small pieces. My Counting in the Garden post has more information about our butterfly.

5.Giraffe - After cutting the giraffe out of paper Little Bit used her finger prints to creat spots. 

6. Hedgehog - this was created at our zoo class, we traced Little Bits hand then cut it out and glued it on to add spikes. 

7. Frog - The frog life cycle was another activity we did in zoo class. Little Bit loved this one so much that she wanted to add it to her wall. 

8. Sheep - This was made at church but I love our simple this was. 

9. Cow - Little Bit found this picture and wanted to add it to the wall. She colored the cow and then asked for it to be cut out and added.


            It was fun to see how much ownership she has taken of the wall. 

Counting in the Garden and Butterflies

 

 

We are currently in the process of moving so we have not had a normal routine at all. We did recently read the book Counting in the Garden. If you have never read this book you should! The illustrations are beautiful and it is a look-and-find counting book. As we read the book Little Bit worked on pointing and counting.
 
We then created the butterfly that you see below with small bits of scrapbook paper. Little Bit was able to practice cutting and using a glue bottle. I love how the butterfly turned out!
 

 

 

With the move I have not been able to do more with the book but I have a few ideas to use with this book.

• Use insect and animals figures or pictures and count out how many are found on each page.
• Create a garden with flowers and plants cut from construction paper and hide the different insects and animals in the picture.
• Create each of the animals and insects.
• Visit a local garden (or your own garden) and look for the animals that were in the book.

 
This is a list of gardening activities and crafts from other blogs.

• No Time For Flash Cards has a list of 23 crafts and activities that focus on the garden.
• Happy Hawkins has cute ideas for felt gardening play sets.
• No Time For Flash Cards has another great idea for practicing patterns and counting.
• Fantastic Fun & Learning as a fun the gardening sensory bin.

 
 

Ocean Animal Play

 

A few weeks ago we went to the beach and ended up on a section of beach that had tons of shells of all sizes. The teacher/mommy in me was so excited and spent most of the morning filling sand buckets with shells. It was worth it because we now have a wonderful collection of shells that Little Bit can play with.

 

Our next theme will be water, ocean, rivers, ice, rain, etc. I ordered a pack of ocean animals to go with the theme and have been excited to pull them out.  Even though I had not planned to use them yet I decided to setup a ocean play area. To setup I filled the water table with water and added a few shells. Then placed all the ocean animals on Little Bits new buggy board.

 

 

 

We spent some time talking about different animals and if they lived in the water only or lived on land too. Our set of animals had three of each animal and Little Bit decided that all the animals should be with their family. All the animals were put into groups (sharks, fish, whales, etc) by the time we finished. Little Bit used several bowls and cups along with the water table as homes for the animals.

 

 

 

 

There are lots of fun stories about ocean animals, these are a few of the ones that we like.

 

1. The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler

2. A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

3. How Deep is the Sea? by Anna Milbourne

4. Don't Eat the Teacher! by Nick Ward

5. Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae, David Wojtowycz

6. Tickly Octopus by Ruth Galloway

 

 

 

 

 

Gail Gibbons - Virtual Book Club Linkup

My friend at Fantastic Fun & Learning is part of a monthly Virtual Book Club, this month we are reading book's by Gail Gibbons. This goes perfectly with our summer long animal theme. We spent the week talking and reading about snakes and had fun with lots of different snake activities. I would of loved to have a real snake for Little Bit to watch all week but my husband would of probably moved out for the week. :)

Decorate a Snake with Leaves

I cut out a snake and we used dead leaves to decorate it. Before we started we read several books about snakes. Hannah loved looking at the pictures and was fascinated to learn that snakes live in trees.

Our leaf snake will be added to our animal wall.

Button Snake

We practiced our fine motor skills with a button snake. The idea came from Fun & Engaging Activities for Toddlers. I sowed a button to one end of a ribbon and a piece of fabric to the other. Then cut small squares with a small slit large enough for the button to fit through.

Little Bit enjoys practicing with the button. We also used this to practice patterns. Somehow both times I snapped pictures of Little Bit playing she was in her PJ's :) 

We read lots of books about snakes. Little Bits favorites were My Snake Blake, Lizard's Home and Hide and Snake.

Zoo Scavenger Hunt

Today, we went on a scavenger hunt at the zoo! We have been talking about animals, making animals for our animal wall and going to zoo classes all month. This scavenger hunt was a great way to look for animals and talk about them. Little Bit loves 'I Spy' and the scavenger hunt book was perfect! As we walked around the zoo and saw a different animal she would say, "Do I have that animal?" then look through her book.

 

 

 

When we found one of the animals that was in the book Little Bit pulled out her stamp and stamped the box. She loved this, to my surprise, I was expecting her to enjoy it but possibly loose interest after a few animals. Little Bit played all the way through the zoo and was upset when we had to leave and could not continue looking for animals.

I originally found the idea at We Wilsons and created a book based on the animals our zoo has. The Zoo Scavenger Hunt Book was printed, double sided on paper then cut and stapled together. It was easy to make.



 

We ended our scavenger hunt feeding the goats and alpaca, which of course were in our book. :)

Animal Footprints

 

 

I found this fun animal print activity on the site Teach Preschool. We used different animal figures based on their feet, paws, or hooves. We discussed what each animal's feet looked like and how they used them. Little Bit liked the beaver because the tail made a mark like the feet.

 

We are having lots of fun learning about animals. Check out my previous post to see what all the fun things we are planning to do this summer with animals.

Summer of Animals

 

 

Summer of Animals

This summer we will be focusing on all things animal. Little Bit and I will be taking three different classes at the zoo that is just for preschoolers. I am excited to go to class with Little Bit, she loves animals and watching her in class should be fun.

The first class is all about how animals grow from baby to adult. The second class is all about Florida animals and the third class is about being a zoo keeper. The first class starts this week and the last class ends in August.

To prepare for talking about animals I pulled together a few things to get started:

• Animal pictures: I printed LOTS and LOTS of animal pictures. The pictures all go along with one or all of the class themes.
• Small animal figures: we can use these in many different ways.
• Animal Books: it is amazing how many animals books we had around the house.
• More will be added to this list as the summer goes on.

There are so many things that you can do with animals. Below is a list of activities we will do, this is not a complete list by any means. If you have any favorite animal activities please let me know.

Animal Activities:

• Sorting picture by air, land and water animals
• Match picture of mom and baby animals
• Math animal figures to animal picture
• Animal shape cookies to decorate
• Foam animals - decorate, play, sort, etc
• Animal print match up
• Patterns with animal figures
• Visit the zoo, petting farm, state park, etc
• Books, books and more books

This is a list of some of my favorite ideas from fellow bloggers.

• Zoo Passport: We Wilsons
• Ice Animals: Sweet Happy Life
• Zoo Hunt: Kids Activities Blog
• Build Your Own Zoo: No Time For Flash Cards
• Noah's Ark Activities
• Pretend Vet Office: Mess For Less
• Play-dough Zoo: Mess For Less
• Pinterest Animal Theme Board - the rest of the animal activities I will be using are on my Pinterest board.

Sensory Bins:

• Edible Zoo: Fantastic Fun &  Learning
• Desert Bin: Blog Me Mom
• Farm Bin: The Imagination Tree
• Artic Bin: No Time For Flash Cards