The Life Cycle of a Frog: Part 2

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

In the previous Related Lesson of our The Life Cycle of a Frog series, found in the right-hand sidebar, you learned that a frog’s life cycle starts with an egg.

This egg hatches into a tadpole. The baby frog (tadpole) will learn to swim and will feed on algae. As the baby tadpole grows, its body will start to change. In this lesson, you will learn about how tadpoles grow into frogs.

Are you ready to get started? Great!

Tadpoles' bodies start to change after about five weeks. Small back legs will start to grow out of the tadpole. The tadpole's body will get longer and the legs will continue to grow, too. Once the tadpole is nine weeks old, it will look like a small frog with a tail. This is called the tadpole with legs stage. The tadpole will be able to eat insects and plants now. It will also be able to swim away from predators like fish and other frogs. A predator is an animal that eats another animal.

After twelve weeks of being a tadpole, the tadpole’s tail will get smaller and it will grow its front legs. This is the froglet stage. This little froglet is looking more and more like a frog every day! The tail will eventually disappear and the froglet will move to land for the first time.

The final stage is the adult frog stage. This is the stage where the frog is fully grown. During this stage, the frogs will spend their life on land and in water. They will feed on insects as adults. Once they are ready, they will find a mate and the life cycle will start over again!

A frog starts as an egg that grows into a tadpole. This tadpole will grow legs, becomes a froglet, and will eventually grow into an adult frog.

• If you were a frog, which stage would you want to be in, and why?

Share your answer with your parent or teacher, then move on to the Got It? section, where you will create a life cycle picture to show what you have learned about the life cycle of a frog.