I haven’t shared any of our fun-school activities in a while but our most recent week was a (little bit rushed) frogs and turtles theme! We had a few other things going on that week so I had to cram all of our planned activities into just two days (instead of the week long spread I usually do). Fortunately with Emily’s extra short attention span lately, it worked out fine. Here are 10 really fun activities we did, along with some how-to’s, links for some great resources I used, and a few FREE printables you can download and use too!
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1. Frog and Turtle Themed Books
We started each day reading these informational books on frogs and turtles that were written for young kids. I liked them a lot because they were easy to read and easy for Emily to understand. The frog book is called Guess Who Jumps by Dana Meachen Rau and the turtle book is called Turtles (Underwater World) by Ryan Nagelhout. I also liked the books because of the colorful photography they used on each page that was generally only one image so it wasn’t overly detailed and kept us focused on one thing at a time (for example the frogs legs or a turtles eggs).
Tip: Visit your local library to see if they have these (or any other frog and turtle related) books on hand!
We also read a couple of fun books. Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London which is a silly book about a boy frog named Froggy who forgets to wear clothes to his very first day of school (Emily thought a froggy wearing underwear was pretty funny). And we read Yertle the Turtle by Dr Seuss. Even though I’ve heard the title of this story many times, this was my first time reading it and it was nothing like I thought it was going to be, ha. Emily sat through it but I can’t say it’s her new favorite Dr Seuss book. It did however help with one of the activities we did after reading it.
2. Five Little Speckled Frog Song – FREE Printable!
Emily has been singing the Five Little Speckled Frog song at the weekly story and playtime events we attend at our local library, so it was perfect to incorporate into our frogs and turtles theme week! To make the song interactive for Emily, I created a fun printable (with full instructions) that you can use too! To put it together you simply print out the images, laminate them (I use these self adhesive laminating sheets from Amazon), then use Velcro dots to stick the frogs to the log. Emily loves jumping each frog into the “pool” as we sing (and guaranteed you will have the song stuck in your head for days to come. Sorry… not sorry?).
Note: The Five Speckled Frogs printable had to be updated due to a tech issue so the download looks a little different than the image above, but I always seem to like the updated version better…. hopefully you will too!
3. Frog Jumping
I purchased plastic party favor “jumping frogs” (similar to these) from the dollar store and Emily had a blast with them. They have a tab that you push your finger down on to make the frog “jump”. Emily caught on right away how they worked and we played with them for quite a while, seeing who could jump the farthest. And I am now finding these frogs all over my house. They came in a pack of 24 and I was sure they would all be lost right away but somehow they are still around.
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4. Feed the Frog – Fine Motor Skill Activity
This activity was similar to how we fed the animals during our fun school farm week. I cut a frog face outline using some green craft foam. Next, I made a big circle for the mouth, glued on two googly eyes, and used a strip of red construction paper that I rolled up around a pencil to make a tongue. Then I gave Emily a bunch of plastic bugs from the dollar store and she fed the frog using plastic tweezers from this Fine Motor Tools Set I got on Amazon.
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5. Sticky Frog Tongue – Fine Motor Skill Activity
We both had A LOT of fun with this one and we couldn’t stop laughing and being silly! The activity consists of using a party favor blow out as a “tongue” to pick up “bugs” to eat. I saw the idea on Pinterest but couldn’t get the full website with instructions to load, so I figured out a way to make it myself.
I bought a pack of red (noiseless) party blowers from the dollar store. Then I used round Velcro adhesive fasteners and attached the rough part of the fastener to the party blower. Next, I attached the soft part of the fastener to some laminated paper bugs I used for an activity when we had fun school – bug week. To attach the Velcro to the party blower, you first need to blow it out so it’s fully extended, then stick the adhesive side of the dot to the very end. For the “bugs”, I recommend making some completely out of felt so they are easier to catch. It was a little challenging even for my adult coordination to try and catch the soft side of the Velcro (you have to make pretty precise contact). Emily made it happen though and she did really great with it! I’ll be trying it again using felt bugs next time. That way no matter where the end of the blow out lands on the bug, it should catch it (and no froggies will go hungry).
6. Frog Life-Cycle Sensory Bin (and counting activity)
Emily had fun with this activity (so did the dog) because she liked “hopping” the frogs from lilypad to lilypad and off the rocks into the water. To set this sensory bin up, I purchased some rubber bath toy frogs and a bag of bulk plastic frogs from the dollar store. I took some green and turquoise pieces of thin craft foam and cut them into lilypad shapes (I used foam because it floats). Then I wrote a number on each one from 1 to 5 with a glitter glue pen (I recommend using a Sharpie or permanent pen instead; I wasn’t thinking about what happens when you mix glitter or glue with water… we ended up with a very sparkly frog pond).
(of course it wasn’t a real Emily activity until she got her feet in it)
For the frog “eggs” I used another piece of thin foam and glued a bunch of small googly eyes to it. I had forgotten about the tadpole part of the life-cycle so I ended up laminating some printed tadpole clipart, then cut them out and even though the ink washed off eventually, they served their purpose (and Emily now knows what a tadpole is)!
In the bin I put a couple of large rocks and a few flowers from our yard then added some water. I set the lilypads up in numerical order as best as I could with them floating around, then had Emily practice counting by jumping from number to number. She got another math lesson too counting each frog that Kallie stole out of the bin.
7. Sea Turtle Life Cycle Worksheets and FREE Printable Puzzle
When we were on vacation in Mexico last year, there were turtle eggs getting ready to hatch and it was really exciting because I’ve always wanted to witness that. Unfortunately it didn’t happen while we were there, but Emily was curious about them so I knew I definitely wanted to teach her about the life-cycle of a turtle.
I had a hard time finding toy turtles at the dollar store and I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on them elsewhere, so instead I found this wonderful Sea Turtle Life Cycle bundle from the website Living Life and Learning. The bundle includes worksheets and activities that revolve around the life cycle of a turtle. It’s a great little set for older preschool kids. One of the worksheets is to name the parts of a sea turtle (shell, flippers, head, tail) and the flippers part really stuck with Emily. Definitely check it out and get a copy!
I used a couple of the activity sheets with Emily but it also gave me an idea to make a printable turtle life-cycle puzzle. Emily had fun with a baby animal matching puzzle during fun school-farm week, so I thought teaching her this life-cycle through a puzzle would be perfect. It worked great so I’m sharing it with you to use during your frogs and turtles theme week!
I printed the puzzle pieces on cardstock paper, laminated them (with self-adhesive sheets like these from Amazon), cut them out and had Emily put them together in order. The first puzzle I made stopped after the adult piece and it wasn’t really exciting because we had to break it apart and do it again each time. To make it more fun, I re-designed it to be like a never ending puzzle so that she could keep moving the egg to the end to restart the life cycle.
On a side note, the artist that designed the turtle images does an amazing job and I’ve fallen in love with her work. I’ll definitely be purchasing much more of it for future fun-school activities (and printables to share)! God knows I’ll never be able to draw.
8. “Yertle the Turtle” Stack Up – Fine Motor Skill Activity
This was a really easy activity using index cards and paper cups. You likely already have them on hand but I have OCD and had to have green cups to go along with our frog and turtle theme so I bought a package from the dollar store. I picked up some index cards while I was there too. All you need to do is have your kid alternate stacking cups and index cards and see how high it will go.
I saw the idea on Pinterest before reading Yertle the Turtle so I had no clue how it was related but I thought it looked like a fun activity regardless. After we read the story it all made sense! And it did end up being really fun… but it also got Emily a little rambunctious the higher the cups were stacked. See, I was determined to stack them as high as possible (ha, just call me Yertle) and she was determined to knock them over. GRRRR. It was kinda like the game Jenga, especially with Emily pulling the index cards out from between the cups when it was “my turn”! LOL
9. “Yogurt Container” Turtles – Sensory Bin
I wanted to do a sea turtle sensory bin with the “ocean” and “beach/sand” but I mentioned I couldn’t find many turtle toys to use for it (and I’m glad because the whole bin didn’t really go as I had planned in my head and just turned into muddy water). I decided to make my own turtles using some craft foam for the bodies (so they would float in water), empty plastic (individual size) yogurt containers for the shells, googly eyes and a Sharpie!. They came out so cute! Their bodies were not so proportioned but as I’ve mentioned a ton of times now, I’m not artistic and can’t draw to save my life. Emily could tell they were turtles and she (and the dog) had fun playing and swimming with them so… goal achieved! She is still using one of them in the bathtub too. #proudmomcraft
To make the turtles: I cleaned and dried the yogurt containers (Jell-O cups, or pudding cup containers would work too), then I sprayed them with a few coats of brown spray paint and let dry. PS- this “Two Good” yogurt from Dannon is super yummy!
Next, I traced a turtle body silhouette on thin, green craft foam, using the yogurt container as a template so I knew how big the body needed to be since I used two different sized containers.
I cut out the foam body then glued the top/open end of the container to it using hot glue (my containers had a little lip around the top that I put glue on but I also glued around the outside circumference as well).
Last, I glued two googly eyes onto the head and drew a happy face mouth with a Sharpie. The end. 🙂
10. Turtle Shell Costume Craft – FREE Printable Template
OK, so the Sticky Frog Tongue was definitely my favorite activity from our frogs and turtles theme week, but this Turtle Shell Craft was a close runner up! We live near a Regional Park where turtles live for part of the year and we can sometimes see them in their natural habitat which is pretty cool. I thought it would be fun for Emily to dress up as a turtle and take a trip to see them but sadly they weren’t there. She was still super excited to have her own turtle shell and showed it off to everyone we saw at the park (and grocery store).
I made this out of craft foam and ribbon and I’m including the full instructions (and a funky shell template) you can download to make your own too!
I call it a “funky shell template” because it is. BUT, if you’re bad at drawing equal sides or straight lines like I am, it will be handy for you! I personally needed something to cut out and trace onto the foam because if I tried to do it free hand, it never would have come out right. So I went online and found a cartoon turtle shell image, and tried to draw my own version as best as I could. It’s a little rough around the edges, literally, but I didn’t feel like putting it into a program to make it pretty since it’s going to be cut apart anyway.
Get creative with it! Fancy it up. Tone it down. Add some racing stripes (ha…). Let your kiddo pick out the colors they want and help put it together. They will definitely have a ton of fun with it and can use it for future playtimes too!
