Building a Frogs Life Cycle

Introduction Frogs spend their lives near water because they must

return to the water to lay their eggs. Frogs eggs are called frog spawn. Frog spawn is laid in the water. When the frog spawn hatches into tadpoles, the tadpoles breathe with gills and swim using a tail. As they grow the tadpoles begin to lose their tail. They also grow legs and develop lungs for breathing air. Frogs eat insects , catching them with their long, sticky tongue. They also eat small fish and worms. In the winter frogs hibernate, that means they sleep very deeply. You might find them hibernating under stones or buried in mud or hiding in the bottom of ponds where they breathe by absorbing oxygen through their skin.

Diagram of a frog

Did you Know? Frogs are amphibians because they start their frog life cycle as eggs

in the water and then turn into tadpoles, which have gills and also live in the water. It isn’t until a tadpole turns into a frog that it can live outside of the water, but it will still need to get in the water to drink and to cool off.

Frogs don’t actually drink water with their mouths; they drink it through their skin. A frog’s skin absorbs water when it is in the water so its body gets all of the hydration that it needs that way and the frog doesn’t need to drink with its mouth.

Frogs are cold blooded. That means that the body temperature of a frog is the same on the inside as it is on the outside. That is why frogs need to be near water so that they can jump in and cool off on hot days.

Not all frogs are green. There are hundreds of species of frogs and each one looks different. Some frogs are red and some are yellow and some are brown. All of the different species of frogs have different patterns on their skin, too.

A frog won’t turn into a prince, no matter how many times you kiss him!

Web Quest You will be required to work with a partner in order

to complete the following three tasks: 1) You will be exploring several different web sites about frogs. “Jump” around these different sites to learn lots of interesting facts about frogs. Upon completion of your research, you will be asked to identify and sequence the life cycle of a frog; 2) You will also be writing a limerick about a frog called a “Froggerick;” 3) To give you something to really “croak” about, you will be choosing your favorite frog jokes to share with the class. “Hop” on into a toady good time!

Process 1) In order to explore facts about frogs, including the life cycle of a frog,

please visit the following web sites. www.kiddyhouse.com/Themes/frogs www.exploratorium.edu/frogs http://allaboutfrogs.org/froglnd.shtml http://cgee.hamline.edu/frogs/students/index.html www.indiana.edu/~animal/fun/color.html www.pca.state.mn.us/kids/frogsforkids.html http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/amphibians/Frogprintout.sht

ml

Once you have finished exploring the above web sites, you need to complete the worksheet on the life cycle of a frog found at the end of this web quest. Print out, color, cut apart the sections, place in the correct order starting from birth, and then staple together to form a book.