LOOKING FOR EGGS, TADPOLES, AND FROGS
Stage: Pre Alphabetic
Skill Level:
Before Reading Activity
Before reading the book, read the read-aloud book on this topic, Frogs and a Robot Frog,
and/or watch the mini-documentary. If possible, read the read-aloud book in the students’ first
language.
Skill Level: For students to read this book independently with the support of the lesson they
need to be able to:
Have speech-to-print match.
Count syllables in words.
Use beginning sound information (focus on /t/, /f/,/l/).
Recognize high-frequency words: (I, can, see, the, a, with).
Use the illustrations to confirm what a word says.
Participate in a guided reading of the book with the teacher.
Lesson Guide
Activity 1 Explore the Book Cover and Read the Teacher page
to Students (page 2)
Title: Looking for Eggs, Tadpoles, and Frogs
Direct students’ attention to the illustration on the book cover. Lead students to predict what the book will
be about. Connect the title of the book to the illustrations.
The lesson provides the questions you can ask students to prompt their predictions. Also a ‘think aloud’
of what you can say to make a prediction with evidence from the title and illustration is modeled.
Questions to Make Predictions About the Book:
Who might be the characters?
Where are the characters? What is the setting?
What will the characters be doing?
What do you see in the picture that connects to the title? (Kim is in a pond looking for frogs, eggs and
tadpoles)
Think Aloud: Say: I see the character Kim and the robot frog. They seem to be under the water maybe
in a pond, lake, or river. I think there is a cut-out of Kim that shows her inside the robot frog. She looks
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like she is driving it. I remember this from the book we read and the documentary we saw. The title
says “ Looking for Eggs, Tadpoles, and Frogs.” Who remembers something we learned about frog eggs
and tadpoles? (frogs lay eggs in the water (pond), tadpoles hatch from the eggs, they change into frogs.)
I think Kim will see eggs, tadpoles, and frogs because of what it says in the title.
Page 2
Read this page to the students to help them understand what they will read about.
Ask:
What is Kim telling her class about? (Kim tells her class about what sees at the pond when she goes
exploring in the robot frog. I also see a frog life cycle chart with pictures of a frog.)
What do you notice on the board behind Kim? (Have students name what they see on the frog life
cycle chart: frog, tadpole, frog eggs.)
Have students identify the beginning letter and sound of Kim’s name. Say: What sound does Kim
begin with? /k/ How do we spell the /k/ sound? (uppercase/capital K because it is a name) Point to the
word that says Kim.
Ask students to name the letters in Kim’s name.(K-i-m). Point to the name “Kim” in the book. Ask
students what is the last sound they hear in the name Kim? (m), Say I know this says Kim because it
begins with a /k/ and ends with a /m/ sound.
Activity 2 Word Work (foundational skills)
Prepare students to read pages 3-6.
Phonological Awareness Practice:
Clap and count syllables: frog (1) pond (1), tadpole (2), froglet (2)
Identify the beginning sound (first sound, how to say it, and spell it for the words: frog /f/ tadpole /t/,Kim
/k/, legs /l/), froglet /f/.
Identify the ending sound for the words: Kim /m/, frog /g/
Identify the beginning sound and how to make it and how to spell it for the words: frog /f/ and tadpole
/t/
Example: Frog begins with the /fff/ sound. I feel my teeth on my bottom lip. It is a quiet sounds. Let’
make the sound. How do we spell /f/? With the letter f. Write the letter f on the board.
Letter f sound
Letter t sound
Practice how to make the sounds: /f/, /g/, /t/, /s/, /k/, /l/
Check the phonics section of the website to review how to teach the sounds of English consonants. Use
multisensory cues to help students learn the sounds made by the letters r, f, w, p, and b. Focus on the
letters your students have difficulty with.
Example:
Teacher: What sound does frogstart with?
Students: /f/
Teacher: What letter makes the sound /f/?
Students: The letter f.
Teacher: That’s right! The word frog starts with an f. Repeat after me: /f/, /f/, /f/ frog.
Students: /f/, /f/, /f/ frog.
Activity 3 Oral Language Practice with High-Frequency Words
Practice using the phrase and change out the pictures. Use the pictures in the book or in the Frog Life
Cycle Chart.
I can see a ____________ (frog, tadpole, pond, froglet).
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Activity 4 Guided First Reading of the Book
Teacher guides students to read each page of the text. First, read the predictable part of the text with
familiar high-frequency words. Next, figure out the new word or words on each page. Predict content
words from the pictures and then check the beginning sound of the word to confirm it. Ask the questions
provided for each page of text to connect the pictures with the words and use beginning and ending
sound information to confirm the word predicted from the picture.
Page 3 Text: I can see the frogs.
Let’s read part of the sentence together. I can see the _________.
Ask: What do you see in the picture? (frogs )
What sound does frog begin with? (f). How do we spell the sound /f/? (the letter f)
I see a word that begins with the letter f. What sound does the letter f make? (/f/). Does frog begin with
/f/? (yes). Let’s check the last sound in frog? (/g/). How do we spell the sound /g/? (letter g) I see a the
letter g in this word too. I also see the last letter is the letter s. That makes sense because when I look
at the picture I see more than one frog. I see two frogs. So using the beginning and ending sounds
and the picture help me to know that this word says frogs.
Let’s read the whole sentence: I can see the frogs. Who is telling us this? (Kim is telling what she
sees when she is in the robot frog).
Read the sentence to me.
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Page 4 Text: I can see frog eggs.
Let’s read the part of the sentence we know together. I can see the frog ______.
I don’t see a frog in this picture. I see the eggs of the frog. I remember what they look like from the
documentary we watched. Point to the eggs.
The word eggs has a /g/ sound in it. How do we spell the /g/ sound? With the letter g. I see two letters
that are g in the word. I see an s at the end that tells us there are more than one. How many eggs do
you see? ( a lot, many, hundreds). I see many eggs. I think this word says eggs.
Let’s read the whole sentence: I can see frog eggs. Who is telling us what she sees? (Kim)
Page 5 Text: I can see a tadpole.
Let’s read the part of the sentence we know together. I can see a______.
What is Kim looking at now? a (I think it is a tadpole. I remember what they look like from the
documentary we watched.)
What sound does the word tadpole begin with? /t/. How do we spell the /t/ sound? (letter t). Do you
see the letter t in this word we need to read? (yes) I remember that tadpole has two syllables, so it is
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a long word. This looks like a long word. Let’s clap the syllables in tadpole. Let’s read this word. How
many tadpoles do you see? (one). There is just one tadpole.
Let’s read the whole sentence: I can see a tadpole. Who is telling us what she sees? (Kim)
Read the whole sentence to me.
Page 6 Text: I can see a tadpole with legs.
Let’s read the part of the sentence we know together. I can see a tadpole _______.
What is Kim looking at now? I think it is a tadpole, but something is different. What do you see? I see a
tadpole with legs. Maybe that is what the sentence says. The next word is with. I recognize this word
because it begins with the letter w.
What sound does the word legs begin with? /l/). How do we spell the /l/ sound? (letter l). Do you see
the letter l in the last word we need to read? (yes) I also see the letter s at the end and I see more than
one leg. So this word says legs.
Let’s read the whole sentence: I can see a tadpole with legs. Who is telling us what she sees? (Kim)
Read the whole sentence to me.
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Page 7 Text: I can see a froglet.
Let’s read the part of the sentence we know together. I can see a _______.
What is Kim looking at now? What do you see? I see a tadpole with legs. Maybe that is what the
sentence says.
What sound does the word froglet begin with? (f). How do we spell the /f/ sound? (letter f). I hear two
syllables in froglet. What is the last sound you hear in the word froglet? /t/. Do you see the letter t at
the end of the word? (yes)
Let’s read the whole sentence: I can see a froglet. Who is telling us what she sees? (Kim)
Read the whole sentence to me.
Page 8 Text: (diagram) “What can you see?”
This page says “What can you see?” I see a Frog Life Cycle Diagram. I know this because of the title in
bold print. Have students read each word in the diagram bolded title.
Let’s try to read the words on this Life Cycle diagram because we read most of these words in our book.
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Find the word that says ‘eggs.’
Find the words that say “Adult Frog.’
Ask question: Why is the life cycle diagram in a circle?
Activity 5 Choral Second Reading of the text
Reread the text with students: My turn, Your Turn
The teacher reads a page of text, and then the students read the same text. Reread the whole book.
Observe students to see if they are pointing to the words as they say them (speech-to-print match).
Example:
Teacher: “My turn. I can see a froglet. Your turn.”
Students: “I can see a froglet.”
Activity 6 Close Reading of the Text with Text-dependent
Questions
A close reading of the text refers to a guided rereading of the text with text-dependent questions that
help the students to think about the meaning of the text. The questions may ask about details that help
students have general understanding of what the text and the pictures together are telling the reader.
Other questions may ask students to make an inference by using what they already know, and looking
for evidence from the pictures and words to understand something that the text does not directly say.
When students make an inference, they may be filling in missing information. Questions will also direct
students to look closely at text features (e.g., diagrams or the author’s word choice).
Questions/tasks are suggested at two or more oral language levels. The purpose of the question levels
is to help students who are learning English participate in the close reading routine.
Page 3 Text: I can see the frogs.
Oral Language Level 1:
Point to Kim. Point to the frogs. Count the frogs.
Oral Language Level 2 +:
What does Kim see? How many frogs are there? Where are the frogs? How do you know? What else
do you see in the picture? What do you see in the circle on the right? Where else did you see this
illustration? (Go back to page 2 and find the text feature of a Frog Life-cycle. Locate the picture of the
arrow between the frogs and the eggs.)
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Page 4 Text: I can see frog eggs.
Oral Language Level 1:
Point to the eggs. Point to the dot in the middle of the eggs.
Oral Language Level 2 +:
What does Kim see? How many eggs do you see? (many, a lot, hundreds)
Infer:What do you see inside the egg? (a dot that might be the tadpole) How do you know?
(from the mini-documentary we watched, from the read aloud Frogs and Robot Frogs, from the Frog LifeCycle Chart)
Think Aloud: I am thinking about the eggs. They must be the eggs of the frogs. So I think they will
hatch to be baby frogs called a tadpole. I see so many eggs so I think there will be many
tadpoles. I realize that the eggs look big to Kim because she is so small too. We read about how
Kim had to shrink to get into the robot frog. But we can see the eggs close-up in this book and
they look big to us.
Page 5 Text: I can see a tadpole.
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Oral Language Level 1:
Point to the tadpole.
Oral Language Level 2 +:
What else does Kim see? Describe what she sees?
Infer: What happens to a tadpole when it changes?
Text Feature: Call attention to the text feature that shows a part of the frog life-cycle. It is in a
circle on the right side of the page.
Page 6 Text: I can see a tadpole with legs.
Oral Language Level 1:
Point to the tadpole with legs. Point to the tadpole’s legs. Point to the tail. Count the tadpoles. (3)
Oral Language Level 2 +:
What does Kim see? What does the froglet look like? Infer: What do you think the froglet can do? (swim
and walk)
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Page 7 Text: I can see a froglet.
Oral Language Level 1:
Point to the froglet. Point to the froglet’s legs. Point to the tail.
Oral Language Level 2 +:
What does Kim see? What does the froglet look like?(a frog with a tail, or a tadpole with legs)
How is the froglet different from the tadpole? (still had a tail)
How are the froglet and the frog the same? (both have 4 legs)
Infer: What do you think the froglet can do? (swim in the water and walk on the land)
Text Feature: Call attention to the text feature that shows a part of the frog life-cycle. It is in a circle on
the right side of the page.
Think Aloud for page 7: I want to understand what the word froglet means. I see the word frog as part of
the word. Then I see another part., “let”. Let’s look carefully at the picture. I think froglet is a young frog,
just like piglet is a young pig,
Page 8 Text: (diagram) “What can you see?”
Look at the labeled diagram on page 8. Connect the diagrams to what happened in the text. Connect
the frog life-cycle diagram to the things that Kim saw (frogs, tadpole, tadpole, froglet, and eggs). Discuss
the life-cycle diagram with students. Have students practice reading and using the labels on the
diagram.
Explain to students why the diagram is circular.
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Activity 7 Oral Language and Writing Practice
Practice making plural form of the noun with inflectional ending -s : 1 frog, 2 frogs, 1 egg, 2 eggs, many
eggs, lots of eggs, some eggs, some tadpoles. Use the pictures in the text.
What do you see? I see _____ (number) ____________ (frog, egg, tadpole, froglet). Change the noun
to a plural when the number is more than one.
Example: I see two froglets.
Give each student an assignment to draw either one thing from the book or more than one thing and
label their picture. Their picture label must be accurate with a plural -s inflectional ending added when
necessary.
Retell events in the story. Use language cue words (first, next, then, after that, finally) to tell the order of
what Kim sees in the book.
Kim is inside the robot frog looking for evidence of a frog life cycle. First, Kim sees two frogs. Next, Kim
sees frog eggs. Then, Kim sees a tadpole. After that, Kim sees a tadpole with legs. Finally, Kim sees a
froglet.
Name all the things Kim can see from the robot frog. (frogs, eggs, tadpoles, froglets).
What did you learn about frogs from this story? Record what students say.
Finally, have students orally explain the Frog Life Cycle Chart.
Activity 8 Assessment
Have students point to words as they read the story.
Observe speech-to-print match.
Check recognition of high-frequency words: the, a, see, can.
Ask students to tell the beginning sound in the words: see, Kim, frog, tadpole
Ask students to point to the first letter and tell its sound for: see, Kim, frog, tadpole
Ask students to tell the ending sound in the words: frog, Kim, froglet
Have students point to punctuation marks: period (.), question mark (?)
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