Kids Wednesday: Frogs

My son and I went to a story time at one of the local libraries that was about frogs.  They read four books which my son was really interested in in they did a few different songs which were also fun.  My son's favorite was:

FIVE GREEN AND SPECKLED FROGS

Five green and speckled frogs (use 5 fingers to pretend they are sitting on a log- hand or arm)
Sat on a speckled log,
Eating some most delicious bugs.
Yum, Yum! (rub stomach)
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool,
Then there were four green speckled frogs.
Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit!

(Repeat until there are no frog left on the log)

They also have a picture on the back of the paper for the kids to color.  I went online and found it in case you want to print it for yourself (click here).

At the end of the storytime, they made a tadpole.  It was already cut out and in an envelope ready for us.  We just had to push the fasteners through the Xs that were on the paper.

Then, attach the arms and legs which fold back into the body to become a tadpole again or come out so that it can be a frog.  We also attached the eyes with some glue.  Great craft to follow story time learning about frogs.

We got a few books that they had left out at story time.  My son has read Jump, Frog, Jump at least five times since then.  If someone knew comes into the house, he pulls out the book and reads it to them too.  There are also the great Froggy book series.  We got Froggy Goes to Bed and Froggy Eats Out.  Then, he decided to get Frog and Toad All Year and Frog and Toad Together.  He was so excited to read more about frogs that we headed into the library to find more books.

We went to section with the books with more details about frogs.  We found three books in the section that were good for kids to learn about frogs.  The Growing Frogs was the best book because it was like a story book but it was good because it included all of the facts.  The other two books were very factual but had lots of good information.

We took a basic story time and turned it into a much more educational learning experience.  I hope that we will have more opportunities to do this through the summer.  I know that there are tons of different topics to learn about so I am looking forward to having those doors opened through some different library programs.  Have you ever turned something small into a big learning experience?