The Life Cycle of a Frog: Part 1

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Frogs can be found almost everywhere in the world!

• Did you know there are 4,740 different species of frogs on the planet?

That means there are frogs that come in different sizes, colors, and patterns. There are lots of interesting frogs out there!

• Are you ready to learn about how frogs change as they grow? Fantastic!

Frogs start off as little eggs. This is the egg stage of their life cycle. Mother frogs lay their jelly-like eggs in wet places or directly in water. Generally, a mother frog will lay her eggs close to land or aquatic plants. The mother frog will lay many eggs — sometimes more than four thousand at a time! — because most of the eggs will not survive. Many animals eat frog eggs. The more eggs a frog lays, the more of a chance some of the babies will have to survive. The eggs are laid in big groups. These eggs will take anywhere between three to twenty-one days to hatch. Below, you can see many different examples of groups of frog eggs (also known as frog spawn):

Most frog eggs look very similar.

• What did you notice about the frog eggs?
• How do they look?

Share your answers with your parent or teacher. Take a look at another picture of frog eggs.

• What is different about the pictures you saw earlier and the picture you see below?

Share your answer with your parent or teacher:

You can see something growing inside of the eggs. Out of the egg comes a tadpole. The tadpole will eat the egg that it hatched out of. The little tadpole isn’t strong enough to do much after it has hatched. It will swim to a plant in the water and it will hold on to this plant. It will float along with the plant until it becomes stronger. After seven to ten days have gone by, the little tadpole will be ready to swim! It will use its tail to swim around. During this time, it will feed on small plants, called "algae." Below, you can see pictures of tadpoles. Discuss with your parent or teacher how frogs and tadpoles look different from each other:

You could see the tiny tadpoles holding on to plants and branches. This is what they do before they can swim.

• How would you describe a tadpole?
• If you were a tadpole, what kinds of things would you need to do to survive?

Share your answers with your parent or teacher. You learned about the first two stages of a frog’s life cycle.

• Did you know that a tadpole is also called a "polliwog"? Does that make you giggle?

In the Got It? section, you will watch a video of tadpoles swimming!