Pre-K & Preschool theme ideas for learning about pond animals: frogs, turtles, fish.
Find more Pond Activities for Pre-K
Books
Check here for a complete list of Books about Pond Animals!
Pond Large Motor Games
Turtle Crawl
Children crawl like a turtle with a “shell” (foam mat or carpet) on their backs, trying not to lose the shell.
Frog Hop Game
Children move from one point to another, hopping like a frog.
Hatch, Little Egg Game
Several pond animals come from eggs. In this movement game, children curl up into a ball and pretend to be an egg. One child is tapped on the shoulder, and pretends to hatch and act like an animal they choose. That student taps the next child who hatches, then taps the next child, etc.
Pond Art Activities
Sand Art
Children draw a pond animal of their choice using a black ink pen to make the outline. They use a glue brush (inexpensive dollar store brush) to spread glue inside the outline and sprinkle on some colored art sand. They use their fingertips to pinch the sand and sprinkle it on, then shake the excess sand onto a paper plate.
Pond Literacy Activities
Beginning Sounds
Children match a small toy pond animal to it’s beginning letter (which is written on a plastic egg), and place the animal inside the egg. (F for frog and fish, T for turtle, D for duck, S for snake, A for Alligator, etc.)
The Lost Button: Book Connection Activity
We read the story “The Lost Button” from Frog and Toad Are Friends, by Arnold Lobel. Each child in the group has a set of buttons. While listening to the story, they eliminate the buttons that do not belong to Toad (for example, a button with two holes, or a square button). At the end, we find out which one belongs to Toad.
Pond Animal Bingo Stamping Game
Use for Literacy or Math. Read about and print the Pond Animal Bingo Game here: Look for the turtle, frog, and duck games.
Frog Roll & Write Game
Use for Literacy or Math. Print and find directions here: Roll & Write Games
Story Retelling
This is an activity that goes with any theme. Choose a book that goes with the theme, and have the children retell the story.
Read the blog post here for details: story retelling
Pond Math Activities
Frog Jump Math
Frogs can jump ten times their length. We lay ten frog cutouts end-to-end to see how far a frog can jump. Then, we compare our jumping distance to the frog’s.
Froggy Slap Math Game
The children work in two teams, each team with a froggy fly swatter. They count dots on a game card, find the number on a lily pad, and swat the fly. The first team member that slaps the fly swatter on the correct fly earns a point for the team. Froggy fly swatters are bought at Big Lots. Lily pads are made with green craft foam sheets, with the bugs drawn on with a Sharpie.
Turtle Bingo
Use plastic turtle counters to cover the letter/number/shape on the bingo cards. We use these to play alphabet bingo, number bingo, shape bingo, or rhyming bingo.
How Many Turtles Fit? Measuring
Children use felt “logs” of various lengths, line the turtle manipulatives across the log, and count how many fit on the log.
Fish Tumble
Children toss foam fish (numbered 1-9) into the pond (blue felt), and arrange them in numerical order. The foam fish were bought in a package at a craft store. (If these are not available in a package, you can make these by cutting a simple fish shape from craft foam.)
Floor Graph
Pond animals, such as frogs, flies and turtles are put in plastic eggs. Children choose an egg from a basket without knowing what is inside. At each child’s turn, they open the egg and place it on the floor graph. We count each group of animals and determine which had the most, least, and same.
Object Graphs
Ice cube trays make great graphs that can be used with manipulatives. Children graph two kinds pond animal manipulatives in the two columns of an ice cube tray. They count each column and determine more/less/same. For example, 5 turtles and 3 frogs.
Pond Pattern Block Mats
Read about and print here: Pattern Block Mat Printables. (Go to this page and look for the fish, turtle, duck, & alligator mats.)
Frog Grid Game
Read about about print here: Grid Games
Pond Science Activities
Gus the Alligator
We watch a National Geographic video called “Gus the Alligator”, and discuss what we learn about alligators. We make a 4-page book about alligators:
Alligators eat ___.
Alligators live ___.
Alligators have ___.
Alligators can ___.
The blanks are filled in with the children’s dictation (a fact about alligators they learned from the video), and the children draw a picture to illustrate.
Aquarium Field Trip
During a field trip to the aquarium, children look for animals on the checklist and mark them off as they found them. The pictures can be marked with a crayon or a sticker dot. Go here for the printable: Aquarium Checklist Printable
For the Science Center
{Science}
Live tadpoles
Live frog
Live turtle
(sometimes these can be borrowed from a student)
More
Rhymes
Nursery rhymes that go well with a Pond Animals theme:
Songs
- A Little Duck song, by Mrs. Jones
- The Alligator Chomp, by Jack Hartmann on the “Math All Around Me” CD
- Six Little Ducks
, by Raffi
- Five Little Frogs
, by Raffi
- Little White Duck
, by Raffi
In My Shop
You might like these Pre-K Math Journals for May, available in my shop.
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