Category Archives: Frogs

May 31, 2015 · 6:53 pm

Frog Fun!

We have been having a lot of fun with our frog unit! The children have been working on creating a page using the iPads and an app called Strip Designer to create a page about the life cycle of a frog.

I pre-loaded some pictures of the various stages of the life cycle on the iPads and saved them to an album for the children.

They had to open up the camera roll and place the pictures in the frame we had chosen. After they had chosen their pictures and placed them in the corresponding spots they had to add the text.

As usual, they were fearless.

I had the children take turns one at a time on one iPad.

When one person finished they passed the iPad on the next person!

We also completed a research project about frogs!

We read the facts together and sorted them into the appropriate categories!

Then we put these covers on them! And we put them in a little pond! Ribbit!

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Filed under Frogs, iPads, Pow Strip designer

Tagged as comic strip designer, frogs, ipads

May 19, 2014 · 8:01 pm

Fun with Frogs!

We have been working on a Frog theme this past week! We did a mini research report about frogs and toads. The children read fact sentences about frogs and toads and then sorted them into different categories! They liked the Cool Fact category the best!

We have also been reading Frog and Toad stories and we made a story map about The Lost Button story!

They added a lot of detail to their story maps!

We made origami frogs to act out the story map! One student really enjoyed making them and made lots of them. She gave some of them away, too!

And, of course, we had to have a origami frog hopping contest!

We have also been doing some more science experiments!

This one seems like magic. We put 5 bent toothpicks together on a plate. The toothpicks are arranged so that the bent parts are close together. We used a straw as an eyedropper and dropped several drops of water on the toothpicks where they are bent. Watch what happens!

It was fun to see their faces as the star appears!

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Tagged as Frog and Toad, frogs, science experiments

May 26, 2013 · 6:40 pm

Frog and Toad Friendship Fun!

We had a Frog and Toad day last week! I love the Frog and Toad stories for many reasons! I love the stories, the theme behind the stories, the exploration of characters, and the fact that they are written for children to read and they are well written! The basic theme of the stories is about friendship. They also deal with characteristics of people. Frog is an optimist who generally looks for the positive and Toad is, well, a bit grumpy… Frog always wins him over and Toad is a grateful friend. We just read one of the books in the series called Frog and Toad are Friends. There are several stories in this book. We had a hard time choosing our favourite. We either liked them all or we liked the story The Lost Button or The Letter. All of them are great examples of being a friend. We made a story map about the The Lost Button story. The children did a great job! Take a look!

I love all the detail! We tried to add the buttons that they found too!

We made origami frogs to “act” out the story map. When you stroke them on their backs, they hop!

So then, of course, we had to have a race!

Ready, set, hop!

Another one of our frog life cycles! We are almost done! Have to find a way to present them all at once for you to see! Researching……

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Tagged as Frog and Toad, story maps

May 11, 2013 · 4:42 pm

Something to Tweet About!

A week ago we made a twitter board with our buddy class! They had created a twitter bulletin board with “tweets” about something they wanted to share! Really interesting to read and find out about what’s important to them right now! So they showed us how to do it!

The children are writing on their own personal strip each week and sharing something important to them! An upscale “show and tell”! The bulletin board “twitter board” lets each child share their important moments.

I have been researching class twitter boards and decided to take the plunge this week! We now have our own Twitter account. It is a protected account. That means that to post to the account I must approve the comment. That protects us from posts that are not appropriate. The blog posts are also posted on the Twitter account!

We tweeted to Chris Hadfield to let him know that we enjoyed his videos about life on the space station. We also tweeted to another class that has a Twitter account. There are some really neat uses of Twitter that we will be exploring in the future.

The children are continuing to create their frog life cycle pages on the iPad using the images that I have downloaded for them and Strip Designer. When they are complete I will figure out some way to share them with you! Here is another sample that is complete! Love the Hello and Boing!

We did a research project on frogs this week! The children had to sort facts about frogs into four different categories. We read them and decided which category fit the best. I was so proud of their reading. Some of the words were hard!

They did a great job! We are collating all our frog stuff into a frog folder!

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Filed under Buddies, Comic Strip Designer, Frogs, iPads, Twitter

Tagged as frogs, ipads, twitter

May 5, 2013 · 4:38 pm

Frog Fun!

We have been working on life cycles over the last little while. Right now we are learning about frogs! Today, we started making a digital image of the frog’s life cycle using the iPads. I googled frog images and then saved them on the iPad. Of course, the iPad makes it super easy to download images! I had read about it and tried it today and it is so neat! Thank you to MattBGomez.com for the tutorial. He had done it with his kindergarten students using the butterfly cycle and the Story Buddy 2 app. You just pick the image you want, tap on the image, and then hold you finger on it and a popup will appear inviting you to save the image. It saves to the camera roll. Once it is on the camera roll we can do lots of things with it! The possibilities are endless! I showed the children the images I had been able to capture and then we imported them into Strip Designer to make a pictorial image of the frog’s life cycle. Then we added the words! One demonstration and then off they went in pairs!

We have also been able to watch some really neat videos created by the National Geographic about frogs. This one is about the Strawberry Poison Dart frog!

The children have also been exploring the Storybook Maker app and it is amazing what they have produced. I am trying to figure out away to upload a book to the blog so that you can see!

They love using the camera on the iPad to take pictures. Even the caterpillar that was brought for Show and Tell starred in a book!

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Tagged as comic strip designer, frogs, ipads

May 16, 2012 · 9:02 pm

Frogs and Flutterbies??

We have been working on a mini unit on life cycles. We started with frogs and are now moving on to butterflies. My husband always says they should be called flutterbies. I started looking around for apps that would relate to frogs. I found a really cute app based on the Mercer Mayer book Where is My Frog! It is a neat little app that allows the user to have the story read to you or the option of reading it yourself. I like that it highlights the words that are being read too. Like most of the iPad story apps there are “hot” buttons that animate parts of the screen. I have also found a version that can be found online. I will put a link to it on the WIKI when I get a chance!

We are also working on the life cycle of the butterfly. Today we started adding some math to our study by looking at symmetry. Butterflies are awesome examples of symmetry. It is fun to put math, science, and art together! TMF! The children worked in partners taking turns putting pattern blocks on each side of the butterfly. One partner got to be “the boss” and put a block on one wing. The other partner had to put the same block on the other side to make both sides symmetrical. Then, of course, the other partner got a turn to be “the boss”!