Welcome to our “Awesome Amphibians Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to amphibians: frogs, salamanders, newts, & more! For our first day, we focused on frogs, the frog life cycle, and some cool traits of specific frogs!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day is having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Many kids have seen at least a frog in nature, movies, cartoons, or books, so they should be fairly familiar with what they look like. But, today, we also concentrated on the frog’s life cycle and other interesting facts!
If you’re looking for some great introductions or brief explanations, these are a few we used:
- At-Home STEM Activities: Life Cycle of a Frog from starhop.com
- How a Frog Becomes a Frog from pbslearningmedia.com (2m)
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- Life Cycle Of A Frog! – The Dr. Binocs Show | Best Learning Videos For Kids | Peekaboo Kidz from Peekaboo Kidz (4m)
- No Ears, No Problem: Frogs Can Hear With Their Lungs from SciShow (4m)
- The Secret of Frozen Frogs! | Winter Science | SciShow Kids by SciShow Kids (5m)
- Magic School Bus: Hops Home S01E05
- Wildkratts: Aquafrog S02E14
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
For our snack of the day, we followed an activity that we found from starhop.com: At-Home STEM Activities: Life Cycle of a Frog. This page not only has ideas for creating a frog life cycle out of fruit and food but also has a short video a facts to go along with it!
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned!
- Face to Face with Frogs (Face to Face with Animals) by Mark Moffett
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: AMPHIBIAN, FROG, LIFE CYCLE
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- Imagine you were an alien explorer from a planet without frogs. If you just found tiny fish eggs, what would you think they were?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning!
For our crafts of the day, we gave them a few options that would help them enhance their pretend play or add in some of what they learned:
- Frog Life Cycle Dollar Store Circle – We were lucky to find this one at the Dollar Tree – while you can definitely make a frog life cycle spinner, this one was a nice add for our little ones to play around with.
- Life Cycle Sticker Assortment Sheet – This is an easy one for little ones who are able to peel stickers. They get to decorate on their own AND if they were paying attention, they can create a life cycle diagram!
- Wood Frog Painting – These Color Your Way Wood Frog Pin Wheels from Michaels were just $1 (on sale) but made for a great activity for the little ones. To lessen the mess a bit, we opted for paint pens 😉
- Frog Origami – If you’ve got the hand for origami, the jumping frog is supposed to be on the easier side. We had an Easy Origami Book, but you could also find instructions online. It was still a bit complicated for our little ones to do on their own, but they loved having a whole bunch of different colored paper frogs everywhere!
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
This science experiment focuses on a particular type of frog that can freeze during the winter. But, they don’t just learn about frogs in this quick video and experiment – they also learn about how ice forms and what may slow the pace.
- Water Experiment in: The Secret of Frozen Frogs! | Winter Science | SciShow Kids by SciShow Kids (5m)
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home camp article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Animal-Themed Ideas, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
