Theme - Frog Theme

I did a frog theme in my second grade classroom last year. I had a job chart titled "Hopper of the Day". I had all the classroom jobs written on that chart and each of my student's names writtien on small frogs. Everyday there would be a new "hopper of the day" that was responsible for the classroom jobs. Many teachers assign each student a job for the week or for the day, but I've always had one student responsible for everything and it works fine.

I also had frog tags on their lockers with mini frog incentive charts posted. They got to give themselves a frog sticker if they didn't "hop their frog" for the day. I had a bulletin board set up for my behavior system. It basically consisted of a mini frog (same used for the job chart) with each student's name. Then behind their labelled frog was 4 lily pads. If they misbehaved or broke a rule for the day they were asked to "hop their frog" It worked well!

I always assign my student a number as well (just to organize papers etc) So, in the corner of their desks next to their name tags was a mini frog that had their number written on it so they could remember it.

I hope this gives you some ideas!
Good Luck and Happy Hopping!
Deb

Susan you inspired me! I have been meaning to do a newsletter too. I liked your format, so I borrowed your idea to create my own "News From the Pond." It will be on the flipside of my weekly behavior report. I created it in Publisher and then pasted it into Word. Thanks for the great idea!

Here is mine. I am trying this for the first time this year as well. I will send mine home weekly on the back of the weekly behavior report. If you would like the PDF version, email me. It is too big to post here.

Hi! I loved the ideas that Alice sent you! WOW! How wonderful!
I bought a wooden frog cut out that stands up and with a huge wooden watering can and painted "Hop on in" on the can.....I placed it outside my window.
Outside of my classroom I had paper frogs on lilly pads and had each students' name on a lilly pad (I kept the actual frogs to use again later). I had a big frog on a larger lilly pad for me....I titled it "Come on into my learning pad!"
In my room I used small paper frogs with the students' names on them (laminated) and the "Toad-ally Awesome Behavior" for the title. Anytime a student would break a classroom rule I would not have to stop the class. I would simply ask them to move their frog to the lilly pad (by the door)that meant they owe me five minutes of recess to talk to me about their choices. If it gets moved into the pond (on the door) they owe me the entire recess. It stopped a lot of wasted time because it made the students in charge of their own behavior, and I could keep right on teaching.
Also, I visited a school that had pond for a reading corner. It was a plastic wading pool with water in it and an air pump(to keep the water moving and air in it.....whatever). Anyway, they placed water plants in it, and had little trees in pots around it....complete with a bench to sit on and read. To top it off, the teacher had placed real goldfish in it and the class had raised frogs for science.....they were both in the "pond." She said the frogs stayed right there in the pond.....It was exciting!
Good luck with your classroom.....The kids love the theme....(For science we studied "Frogs are Fantastic.")

I have had a "first day writing" board that used the frog theme. I always have mine write about their summer vacation the first day back. For the frog board, I have three different sized frogs sitting on three different lily pads. Blue background paper, green bordette. Title of board: "Can't 'Frog'et My Vacation" It's cute and colorful.

Just a suggestion, but you could make a lily pad by drawing a large circle or tracing something. Then cut a slice out of it like a slice of pie. If you want to add more details, clip out little triangles around various places on the edge. Use a black or dark green marker to trace the edges of the lily pad.

Hope this helps! Since I never actually made my room into a frog theme, this is all the help I can offer. Maybe Laura could help you out! She made lily pads.

My room is done in a pond them and so I have tons of frogs. Our school requires us to have an AR board so I went with the frog theme. I have lilly pads with points on them (we go by threes) and a frog with each students name. Their frogs jump every three points. It is titled "Jump into a good book." Hope this helps!

I have used frogs as my theme for the past two years. I call the children my FROGS (F=fabulous, R=respectful, O=outstanding, G= group of S=students) I have this on a bulletin board with their names on frogs. They really enjoy this. I am now looking for some ideas for the computer center that would go along with frogs. Any ideas would be helpful!

My class "pet" is a stuffed frog that goes with the classroom theme. His name is Mortimer named years ago after a frog in the first grade reading series we used. The name stuck!
I send home the frog with a student each weekend with his Journal notebook. The note book is the kind that you can slip paper into the front and back plastic cover. The front has a paper that says Mortimer's Weekend Journal and has a picture of a frog. The back paper lets parents and child know what to do through a poem I wrote. Feel free to copy if you like it!

Dear Friend,
When I go with you to stay at your home, please take good care of me, don't leave me alone. Take me with you to watch what you do(Not left in a backpack the whole weekend through!) Let me come out to see where you stay, to see what's for dinner and what games you play. On Sunday night when your ready for bed, help me write what we did, and then rest your head!

Thank you for a great time!
Love, Mortimer Frog
P.S. Remember the rule....On Monday I have to be back at the school!

I have the notebook paper in the folder each sheet in a paper protector. I start out the year with a note inside from Mortimer to the class telling them about his summer at the teacher's house with her three children
. It sets a good example of how to write what was done during their weekend and also tells them what I did over the summer.

Mortimer's weekend adventure is always shared on Monday during morning meeting time. I really enjoy this activity with my class, I hope you do too!

I teach 5th grade Reading. I also have a frog themed classroom and the kids love it!

BB: We're awfully "POND" of __ grade! Have a pond background with a frog on it.

***I have a poster of Reading strategies and by it I put "Catch a Reading Strategy with a frog cathcing a fly.

***By the Cd player I have: GET FROGGY! ROCK TILL YOU HOP with a frog .

*** Hoppy Helpers! We HOP to it

*** Our lockers are in our room. Clean Lockers Is No CROAK! I have a fog that looks serious.

*** I painted my reading center with frogs in a pond floating on lily pads getting some sun, laying in grass enjoying the weather. Very cute! It says: Reading is TOAD-ally Terribbit!

***Success is just a HOP, JUMP, and a LEAP away!

*** Banner: Take the Leap: Fear of flying is Worse than Fear of Croaking!

I posted the 8 expectations for living if anyone is a GE classroom or school. I typed them up and put frog clipart on them.

***FROG-uently ask yourself: Who, What Where When Why and How.
I put a frog who looks like he pondering these thoughts. For Reading Comprehension.

I have the Poetry Pad. I put monthly poems up and the kids rectie them to me.

***Leaping lily pads with AR! I cut out lily pads from cardboard and painted them green and sprayed gold glitter on them.

***Books are Frog-tastic!

These are a few things that are in my room. If you want, I can email you picts of my room.

I am also doing a frog room. Here is what I have so far:

Reading Area- The Pond "Read It, Read It"
News- What's Hoppening?
Birthday- Hoppy Birthday
Newsletter- Tadpole Talk
Door- Welcome to Our Pad

Also, I am using the FROG notebooks for organization and my class discipline is a frog theme "ribbit rewards". As a class reward, the students move a large frog onto lily pads around the room when they receive compliments.Oh, I also got a lot of frog stuff from Target's bath section. Hope this helps!

START OF YEAR: Leaping into ____ grade! OR Look who's hopping their way into ____ grade. Put students names on Frogs and put little lily pads and cattails around on the board.

READING: Leap into a good book! OR Read-it, Read-it, Read-it. I have seen teachers use a lilpad system to keep track of books read. Each student has a lily pad and small frog stickers indicate books read. OR Make bookmarks that say "Leap into a good book!" with froggy clip art on them. (Cute frogs can be found at MSN Clip Art Gallery Online)

READING CORNER: Get a blue rug for your reading corner and use stencils to paint frogs all over with fabric paint. Call it, "The Pond," and put a few green pillows around for students to sit on. If you could find artificial cattails, they would look nice in a pot around the edge.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT: If you use a level system for classroom management, why not make a lily pad for each level and move the frogs from lily pad to lily pad, if need be.

CLASS REWARD: For a "whole class" reward system, like marbles in a jar," call it "Feed the Frog" and put up a large cutout of a frog with a big mouth. Draw a grid in his mouth. Buy those inexpesive little plastic flies and fill the grid each time the class earns it. When it's full, host a special party, movie, etc. (Or Call it F.R.O.G. awards... For Reaching Our Goal)

More ideas...

Call the morning activity "Leap of the Day" or "Morning Leap"

Put a picture of a frog on your background screen of your computer.

Showcase student work on a bulletin board labeled "Frog-tastic Work!!"

For a classroom pet, get a little frog! Tree frogs and fire-bellied toads make nice pets.

Make student nametags that say "______'s Pad!"

Have a student of the week bulletin board labeled: "Look who's leaping their way to success!"

I have seen many adorable rubber stamps with frogs on them at craft stores. A lot of them have teacher messages on them like "Great work!"

That's all I can think of at the moment! Frogs are a lot of fun! Best of luck with your theme.

Krissy

Hoppin' opoly could be your title!

Make a small lily pad on each square with a street name like "TOAD STREET" or "JUMPY AVENUE"

Each student could be a small frog that hops around the board. Instead of "on the bus" make it "in the pond." Use "GREEN BUCKS" (with a big frog on theme) as money for a reward for the game. Have students see who can earn the most of the bucks by the end of the quarter.

I am taking a new approach to behavior management next year. The kindergarten teachers at our school attended a workshop this past January, sorry I forget what it was called. Anyway the guest speaker suggested the following idea to have about 5 lily pads and then the student's names would be on frogs. Any time a student or group is caught being good they move their frog to the next lily pad. When they get to the last lily pad they get some form of reward. Some students may take one day to get to the end and some may take a week or more. But her whole idea was focusing on positive reinforment because so often the negative is reinforced. I really liked this idea and am going to give it a go next school year. Any theme could be used here, for example if you were doing bees insted of lily pads you could use bee hives and bees.

I did a frog theme last year with my second grade class. I called the kids my "tadpoles" and told them that by the end of the year they would all be frogs ready to jump into third grade. My newsletter was the "Tadpole Tidbits", we had a news studio where kids reported on their self-selected reading books which was the "Tadpole Book Newsroom", and our behavior chart was F.R.O.G. (Friends who show respect stay on green). This year I am changing my room to "Biomes of the World", but the frogs and toads that are found in each biome will be the stars (after all, my students/parents showered me with frog presents throughout the year).

i did frog as my theme last year and did it all year long. i started by doing frogs and talked about local bodies of water in relation to neighborhoods and by the end of the year we talked about bodies of water in the world and rainforest/colorful frogs. i picked up lots of frogs to put around the room at the end of the summer in garden areas of local discount stores as they were usually marked down. my hall was welcome to our pad, behavior bb was toadally awesome behavior,
door said were hoppy to see you, math board was hop into learning. just look for synonyms for jump or frog and play with that. on parent folders i did kathy's frog folder(fantastic, responsible, organized and growing) folder and mrs. sides' pad. then on the back i put thanks for being a frog to help encourage them to follow the f.r.o.g. theme. i had lots of positive feedback on the folders. i used a lot of trend, carson-dellosa and others to decorate. the book frog frenzy had some cute ideas and don't forget about clip art from frog street materials that you could use as blow ups. i also orders tadpoles and raised frogs in my class from uncle melton. they come ready to go and you just have the habitat and feed them. you might try to look that up. i bought my kit at a teacher store. i also took strength in looking at my frogs and thinking fully rely on god. hope these ideas help...

Toad-ally Cool Student

King/Queen of the Pond

Leaping Leader

High Jumper

Hi!

I have a frog theme in my classroom and I use the saying..."Sticking to Postive Behavior." Might be cute since she is using sticks. I have a picture of a frog who is catching flies with it's sticky tongue. Also as a postive behavior incentative, each day that no one has to move their frog from green, the class earns a fly (cute little clip art). After 10 flies, the class earns a special reward.

I made the attachment for a friend who is moving to kindergarten. I thought there might be some things on it that would assist you.

I am doing a frog theme this year. I am not finished, so I don't have any pictures yet.
I do a lunch count chart. I have pictures of a packed lunch and a "bought" lunch. The students place their names under the correct picture. This is how we take attendance also. This year, the lunch pictures are on lily pads. I found some small wooden frog shapes (they were at Deals, in a package with princess's, crowns, castles)...I glued the frogs to the end of a popsicle stick, and will write the student's name on the other end.

I have a weather frog that you dress for the weather each day. I have small folding chairs with frogs on them from Big Lots. I also have a frog folding chair (the kind you fold up into the bag)...I got it at Dollar General. I will use it for my "Power Chair". I also bought pillows that I am going to cover with frog material...for the reading center.

I have a frog with a welcome sign with it...it would be a frog you would stick in your flower garden...or outside..it is small...anyways, I am going to sit it on my desk to let kids know when it is ok to approach my desk. (When I am working one on one with a student, the welcome sign will be towards me....when I am not busy with a student, the welcome sign will be facing the class). Not sure if that will curb the interruptions, but I am going to give it a try! :o

I also created "Frogopoly"...like the Homeworkopoly. This will be a behavior incentive for my class.

I will post pictures when I am finished with my classroom.

Hello Amy!
This year for Christmas a parent gave me a really cute pad of frog awards (they said ______ had a great day! signed by.....)
At first I didn't know what to do with them, but then we implemented Friday Frogs! Each Friday I passed out two Friday Frogs to students who had been at school each day that week and had put in great effort or made great progress in a given area (either behaviorally or academically.) The students got a frog award (which I crossed out great 'day' & put 'week'.) and a frog sticker to wear home. They loved Friday Frogs.
Just an idea to add to the theme.

Good luck!
Carlie