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I was looking through my lesson plans the other day, and I found that I had a lot of songs about frogs. Do I have a thing for frogs? No. But for some reason, frog songs dominate in the lower grade levels. So today, I’m sharing4 fun frog songs– and what to do with them!
PS You can grab a Google Slides lesson pack with all 4 of these frog songs for FREE! The slides include lyrics, recordings, sheet music, and something to do with each one.
Kaeuro
A Japanese frog song is perfect for the littles! This Japanese folk song has some hand motions, which I learned from the Youtube video below.
- Line 1: Make fists, then spread fingers out on beat
- Line 2: Hold hand to each ear one at a time on beat
- Line 3: Hands and feet in, then out on beat
- Line 4: Walking with arms pumping to beat, then claps on the last 3 “gwa!”
You can also do this in a round, which means that you can spread it across different grade levels! That means you can use it for multiple music lessons for spring.
Click here for more Spring music lessons!
Frog in the Meadow
Next up is a sol mi favorite– Frog in the Meadow. This song is perfect for teaching sol mi or quarter rest, and it has a super fun singing game.
This game is similar to Cut the Cake if you’ve played that one before.
Here’s how to play:
- One person is the “frog” in the middle. They close their eyes and spin around while the group sings. They also have their hand pointed out.
- At the end of the song, whoever the frog is pointing to stands up with the person next to them. The frog “cuts” them. The both run in opposite ways to around the circle.
- The frog stands in the empty space where they were with their hands out. The first person to make it all the way around the circle and tap their hands is the winner and the new frog.
Since this game is more complicated, I would say to use it with 2-3.
Here’s a video to help you see it better.
I use this one to teach sol mi and rest. If you’re teaching these concepts, then you should purchase my Frog in the Meadow lesson pack. It has google Slides presentations to teach the song, the game, learn about sol and mi or rest. It also has print and go worksheets to use along with the song, and a super fun frog high low task card activity.
El coqui
Finally, El coqui. This is a Puerto Rican folk song about a coqui (tree frog), which makes a sound like “coqui”. We use this one to practice high and low, moving our “hand frogs” (our hands balled up in the shape of frogs) or scarves to the contour of the melody.
There’s also a Dora episode with a coqui singing this song, which the kids love to watch.
If you’re intimidated by the words, you can just do the chorus, which is the word “coqui”. This will help the kids pick it up quickly as well.
I’m now pairing this song with the book Coqui in the City, about a Puerto Rican boy who moves to a city in the US and brings his pet coqui with him.
Fun fact: If you look up these frogs, you’ll find that they are actually an invasive species, and California and Hawaii are really upset about these little frogs hitching rides on tropical houseplants and moving in.
Little Green Frog
Fun fact: When I wrote this blog post about frog songs for elementary music, I hadn’t discovered this. I found it after and had to add it, because my first graders are OBSESSED.
We keep the beat (with our bouncing “frog” AKA our hands) on the first half, and then clap on the rests in the second half.
Then we listened to different frog sounds and changed the words to try to sound like different frogs on the “la di dah di dah” part.
Bonus: Frog Task Cards for high and low!
While you’re working on frog songs, add in these frog composition and task cards to prepare or practice sol and mi. Students add the frogs on top or or below the log to show different high low or sol mi patterns. Use for dictation, use to notate Frog in the Meadow, or use for composition!
These are included in the Frog in the Meadow lesson pack, click here to purchase the frogs or the whole pack.
And make sure you grab the frog songs freebie so that you can get all the resources for the lessons!
Click here to join the free resource library!
Happy teaching!
Becca
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