"And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of a whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night?" -- Chief Seattle, 1854
We would love to hear from you! How are you utilizing the resources on this site? How can we improve it? What would you like to add? What are you doing for Frog Jumping Day? Introduce yourself, please! After you review this page you may then proceed to the following pages for many more resources and ideas: Planning your Frog PBL Unit and Frog Resources
frog jumping day
Frog Jumping Day is May 13!
Based upon Mark Twain's first short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", this is an annual event. Read along - your students may read along as they listen to the story.
Suggestions for Frog Jumping Day
Begin building your Children's Literature Database on Frogs
1. Gather both fiction and non-fiction. For example, whenever I needed certain titles, or a collection of books related to a unit theme, I began by asking my colleagues for ideas, books or other materials/activities they could share. You would not believe how many excellent ideas, materials and other resources are there just for the asking!
2. Next, I went to our school librarian; she scoured our library, then checked with libraries at other schools in our district.
3. Not stopping there, I went to the local university library as well as the public library - I checked out many books, loading my classroom with a variety of interesting resources.
4. Create an awesome display! I placed all those gorgeous, enticing books on display - across the chalk tray, all the way around the window ledge, on top of all our bookcases - arranging them the same way a library displays featured titles.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 digitally - create an Online Frogs Database which your students can access anytime, anywhere.
Internet searches for "Frogs in Literature" and "Frogs in Children's Literature" will yield so many excellent results that they are too numerous to list here. Just do the search, and you will find fantastic ideas and books to bring into your classroom. I mention colleagues, the school librarian and nearby public and university libraries so that you do not have to spend a fortune creating the Frog Resources for your classroom.
6. Read aloud time - every day! Now, select a few items from the "frog" books for read-aloud time!
7. Enlist! I always received enormous support from our campus Music, Art, Drama and PE teachers! Just let them know the theme, then stand back and watch them integrate the project into their classes! Everywhere I go I have these teachers telling me how much they would love to collaborate with the core content teachers in projects.
8. Go Outside - let you students practice jumping like a frog, or play Leapfrog. What else could we do here? See #9, next.
9. Reach Out - Contact your local County Extension Office (or similar service if you are outside the USA). They have agents with enormous knowledge and great activities they can do with your class. I also found the local 4-H offices to have excellent resources. For example, here is the 4-H in Texas.
10. Use this Frog Jumping Day page for unit ideas and resources related to the "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" as well as many resources related to frogs in general. Find out why frogs are very important to humans.
For upper elementary, middle and high school
I would take advantage of online access to Mark Twain's first short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". It is not very long, so you certainly could read it to the students (some practice is recommended due to the dialect/pronunciation). Or, here is an audio file with text for students to listen to and read along.
"He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too."
There is no such thing as students being too old to enjoy and benefit from a good read-aloud! For more tips and resources on reading aloud visit the Jim Trelease web site.
Resources for Frogs - The Exploratorium has an amazing web site related to Frogs. The Smithsonian offers 14 very interesting facts about frogs! Schmoop has a study guide for story.
Save the Frogs is an excellent web site with many resources, for example, Why Frogs? See this article, "How frogs and humans interact: influences beyond habitat destruction, epidemics and global warming". Scroll down to download the article below.
Resources related to the story - This site contains excellent resources, activities and materials based upon this story.
The story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", along with Frog Jumping Day, is an excellent "jumping off" place for a high quality, project-based unit. The story itself would be an entry event into the unit; I would not recommend spending many days or weeks on "frogs". The story, though, opens the door for students to explore and expand beyond the story itself.
At the high school level your PBL unit could focus on writing skills and styles, literature, language and history as well as many specific language arts skills such as simile, metaphor, vocabulary, etc. It could introduce students to the works of Mark Twain as well as other writers of his era; these fictional writings provide insight into the sociohistorical context of the times, which connects to history, cultural studies, geography and more.
Cultural Studies and Literature related to the story are plentiful - from Aesop's Tales to Hans Christian Anderson, the Grimm Brothers and Beatrix Potter, as well as tales from various cultures (and through time).
Environmental Studies - The focus could be scientific as in Biology, or for younger students, the Animal Kingdom. All of these could be integrated in a unit focusing on Environmental Studies - ecosystems and human impact on animals as evidenced, for example, by mutations caused by pollution.
By the way - about that Jumping Frog Contest - Rosie the Ribiter has held the record since 1986 with a jump of 21 feet, 5 & 3/4 inches!
Proceed to:
Planning your Frog PBL Unit
Frog Resources
Frog Content Connections
Professional Development - attend our workshop, PBL21 - the next step in the evolution of project-based learning, to learn how to develop a high level, high quality PBL21 unit - designed specifically for your class!
Contact Us for additional information.
Based upon Mark Twain's first short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", this is an annual event. Read along - your students may read along as they listen to the story.
Suggestions for Frog Jumping Day
Begin building your Children's Literature Database on Frogs
1. Gather both fiction and non-fiction. For example, whenever I needed certain titles, or a collection of books related to a unit theme, I began by asking my colleagues for ideas, books or other materials/activities they could share. You would not believe how many excellent ideas, materials and other resources are there just for the asking!
2. Next, I went to our school librarian; she scoured our library, then checked with libraries at other schools in our district.
3. Not stopping there, I went to the local university library as well as the public library - I checked out many books, loading my classroom with a variety of interesting resources.
4. Create an awesome display! I placed all those gorgeous, enticing books on display - across the chalk tray, all the way around the window ledge, on top of all our bookcases - arranging them the same way a library displays featured titles.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 digitally - create an Online Frogs Database which your students can access anytime, anywhere.
Internet searches for "Frogs in Literature" and "Frogs in Children's Literature" will yield so many excellent results that they are too numerous to list here. Just do the search, and you will find fantastic ideas and books to bring into your classroom. I mention colleagues, the school librarian and nearby public and university libraries so that you do not have to spend a fortune creating the Frog Resources for your classroom.
6. Read aloud time - every day! Now, select a few items from the "frog" books for read-aloud time!
7. Enlist! I always received enormous support from our campus Music, Art, Drama and PE teachers! Just let them know the theme, then stand back and watch them integrate the project into their classes! Everywhere I go I have these teachers telling me how much they would love to collaborate with the core content teachers in projects.
8. Go Outside - let you students practice jumping like a frog, or play Leapfrog. What else could we do here? See #9, next.
9. Reach Out - Contact your local County Extension Office (or similar service if you are outside the USA). They have agents with enormous knowledge and great activities they can do with your class. I also found the local 4-H offices to have excellent resources. For example, here is the 4-H in Texas.
10. Use this Frog Jumping Day page for unit ideas and resources related to the "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" as well as many resources related to frogs in general. Find out why frogs are very important to humans.
For upper elementary, middle and high school
I would take advantage of online access to Mark Twain's first short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". It is not very long, so you certainly could read it to the students (some practice is recommended due to the dialect/pronunciation). Or, here is an audio file with text for students to listen to and read along.
"He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too."
There is no such thing as students being too old to enjoy and benefit from a good read-aloud! For more tips and resources on reading aloud visit the Jim Trelease web site.
Resources for Frogs - The Exploratorium has an amazing web site related to Frogs. The Smithsonian offers 14 very interesting facts about frogs! Schmoop has a study guide for story.
Save the Frogs is an excellent web site with many resources, for example, Why Frogs? See this article, "How frogs and humans interact: influences beyond habitat destruction, epidemics and global warming". Scroll down to download the article below.
Resources related to the story - This site contains excellent resources, activities and materials based upon this story.
The story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", along with Frog Jumping Day, is an excellent "jumping off" place for a high quality, project-based unit. The story itself would be an entry event into the unit; I would not recommend spending many days or weeks on "frogs". The story, though, opens the door for students to explore and expand beyond the story itself.
At the high school level your PBL unit could focus on writing skills and styles, literature, language and history as well as many specific language arts skills such as simile, metaphor, vocabulary, etc. It could introduce students to the works of Mark Twain as well as other writers of his era; these fictional writings provide insight into the sociohistorical context of the times, which connects to history, cultural studies, geography and more.
Cultural Studies and Literature related to the story are plentiful - from Aesop's Tales to Hans Christian Anderson, the Grimm Brothers and Beatrix Potter, as well as tales from various cultures (and through time).
Environmental Studies - The focus could be scientific as in Biology, or for younger students, the Animal Kingdom. All of these could be integrated in a unit focusing on Environmental Studies - ecosystems and human impact on animals as evidenced, for example, by mutations caused by pollution.
By the way - about that Jumping Frog Contest - Rosie the Ribiter has held the record since 1986 with a jump of 21 feet, 5 & 3/4 inches!
Proceed to:
Planning your Frog PBL Unit
Frog Resources
Frog Content Connections
Professional Development - attend our workshop, PBL21 - the next step in the evolution of project-based learning, to learn how to develop a high level, high quality PBL21 unit - designed specifically for your class!
Contact Us for additional information.
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