Today, I have a hands-on frog life cycle activity to share with you!

This is a wonderful activity for children of all ages, as it can be modified to be simple enough for children as young as 2, or detailed enough for children up to 12. I’ll share with you how I approach this activity with little learners (through a playful playdough activity) and big kids (who can make their own playdough and create a detailed frog life cycle model).

Summer Camp at Home

Both of these activities are part of Summer Camp at Home, my 6-week nature program. Summer Camp at Home guides you through the summer with daily stories and hands-on activities. You’ll learn all about butterflies, bees, stars and constellations, flowers, frogs, and birds while having fun learning, creating, and making beautiful memories together!

There are two versions of Summer Camp at Home, one for Little Kids ages 2-6, and one for Big Kids ages 6-12. You can check them both out right here:

Free Frog Life Cycle Activity & Story

Before we get started, you can download the Free Frog Life Cycle Activity & Story below. It includes a five-part story featuring Freddy the Frog and his amazing transformation from egg, to tadpole, to froglet, and frog. You’ll also get a glimpse inside Summer Camp at Home to see if it is a good fit for you and your family.

Create the Frog Life Cycle with Playdough

For each theme in Summer Camp at Home, there is a five-part story. In the frog theme, you read all about Freddy the Frog. But… Did you know that Freddy the Frog wasn’t always a frog?! During Freddy’s adventures, you’ll learn about the frog life cycle, what frogs eat, where frogs live, and what happens to frogs when the winter months arrive.

Today, I’m going to show you the activity relating to the frog life cycle portion of the story!

I’ll share both the Little Kid and Big Kid versions of this activity with you today. Sometimes, the activities in each version are based on a similar idea, like this frog life cycle activity, and sometimes, they are completely different activities but complement each other nicely.

And with that said, let’s get into it!

For this activity, you will need:

• Playdough, salt dough, or clay
• Paper plate (optional)
• Paint and paintbrush (optional)
• Markers (optional)

Ultimate No-Cook Playdough Recipe

If you want to use playdough for this activity, I have an amazing no-cook recipe for you! It includes a set of visual instructions perfect for kids to follow along, right here: https://www.howweelearn.com/the-best-easy-no-cook-play-doh-recipe/. For big kids, I encourage you to let your child lead the way with making the playdough while you supervise.

Once you have your playdough ready, give your child some time to simply play with the playdough. I always find it best to let children get some fun and creativity in before trying to work with them in specific ways, especially when using something as fun as playdough!

Once the initial fun is out of the way, we can start working through the frog’s life cycle.

Frog Life Cycle Activity for Little Kids

In the Little Kid Edition of Summer Camp at Home, you walk your child through a simplified version of Freddy the Frog’s metamorphosis. First, encourage your little one to roll a ball. Tell your child that this ball represents the egg Freddy was inside of. You can also create a ball so you can model these steps for your child.

Next, pinch one end of the ball, forming a tail. Tell your little one that after Freddy hatched, he became a tadpole. He was very much like a fish, having gills and a tail.

After this, pinch two little back legs and two little arms from the ball of playdough. Now you have made a froglet! At this stage, lungs develop so the froglet can breath out of water.

Finally, smoosh the tail in and make the legs and arms full size. Now your froglet has become a full-grown frog!

Your little one is now ready to make their own model of the frog’s life cycle! They can start with a ball shape for an egg and transform it into a frog, like you demonstrated. They could also make each stage separately and save it to learn and play with throughout the week as you learn more about frogs together.

Frog Life Cycle Activity for Big Kids

In the Big Kid Edition of Summer Camp at Home, you learn about the stages of Freddy the Frog’s metamorphosis in detail. Using their new knowledge and the life cycle wheel as a reference, your child can dive into creating each stage of the frog life cycle.

They might choose to make a model of each stage in 3D, or make each stage flat, pressing them onto a paper plate.

We used air-dry clay to create the states of the frog life cycle, but you could make a batch of salt dough or use any kind of clay that you like! I quite enjoy working with air-dry clay, as it keeps the mess to a minimum and drys pretty quickly.

We also decided to paint our paper plate blue and green to represent the water and land. I love how it turned out!

If you want your life cycle model to be a bit more durable for the long term, salt dough is a wonderful option. We have homemade salt dough Christmas ornaments from years and years and years ago that still look like the day we created them!

If you use salt dough, you could also paint your models and perhaps seal them with a coat of Mod-Podge.

Whatever suits your fancy!

The plan was to save Summer Camp at Home to enjoy it, you know, in the summer… but now that my little ones are heavily invested in Freddy the Frog’s adventures, they want to keep going! And when the kids are excited about their learning, this mama is all for some Summer Camp at Home in March.

This summer is going to be magical!

If you would like to enjoy more nature-themed, hands-on activities with your little one this summer, you’ll want to check out Summer Camp at Home! Whether you go with the Little Kid or Big Kid Edition—or both!—you’re going to love how easy it is to give your child a magical summer:

Thank you so much for reading, sweet friend!

xo
Sarah