Frog Math

When I was researching activities for our frog unit, I found several frog related math activities.

1. Jump from one lily pad to another, jumping only on the even numbers or only on the odd numbers. I also mixed the numbers all up and she had to jump on each sequentially.

2. Line up ten frog cut-outs on the floor (because frogs can jump ten times their length) and compare how far you can jump.  Measure the distances for some extra math.  This idea came from Prekinders but I changed it up by numbering the frogs by two and having Bear skip count as she laid out the frogs.

 

3. Use frog counters for “cards and counters” work (counting work) and for addition or subtraction problems.

 We actually only have a dozen of these frogs so we can't use them for counters (you need 55 counters for cards and counters).  Instead I found sheets of frog stickers left from my classroom teaching days.  I cut them up, counted out 55 of them and put them in a little container to be used as counters.

 These frog sticker counters are also great for patterning and sorting.

The sorting possibilities are many: for example, yellow bows, yellow bows on top, yellow neck bows, girl frogs versus boy frogs, and the rest of the color sorting.

Patterning:

4. Froggy Grid game – print out the lily pad grid game at Prekinders and use plastic frogs to play.  Roll a die and put out the right amount of frogs until grid is filled. This can also be a two player game. In our version, Bear can only put a frog down if the number she rolls is even.  Or sometimes we'll play that she can only put a frog if the number is odd.

5. Toss a die and use chopsticks to transfer that number of frogs on our Frogs on a Log practical life activity.   We also use two die and add up the number of frogs just like in number 3 above.

6. Poison Dart frogs – this idea is from Prekinders but instead of spray painting beans blue on one side and red on the other, I just went and bought these two color counters because I didn't want to deal with the mess.  We will use these counters a lot for probability, amongst numerous other things, for many years to come.
The counters are supposed to be poison frogs.  You put ten in a cup, shake, rattle, and roll onto a mat,  then count/graph how many red and how many yellow. 

7. This next idea to do a counting booklet actually came from Bear's classroom.  She often comes home with these booklets labeled, "I can count...(fill in the blank with some sort of counter shape)" and usually she counts chicks, but one day she came home with "I can Count Frogs."

Each page has a different number of the item from 1 to 9 (sorry about Blogger flipping photos without my permission!).  The children count the drawings and then stamp the number they've counted.

In our home version, Bear will do the reverse, stamping the number of frogs written on the page.

 The sponge is for her to clean the stamp after use.

Linked to Math Mondays.