Five little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log
Eating the most delicious bugs — YUM YUM!
One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool
Then there were four green, speckled frogs.
Ribbit! Ribbit!

Did you know…..? Counting rhymes like this one help to develop a solid foundation in early maths skills such as counting, addition, subtraction and one-to-one correspondence skills which involve counting each object in a set only once, with one touch per object.

When children have opportunities to touch and manipulate objects as they learn, they will create meaningful connections in their brains that stick…Let’s have some hands on learning fun by creating some of our own speckled frogs. Manipulating dough is also absolutely wonderful for working all the muscles in your child’s hands and fingers important for writing skills later on.

Materials needed:

1 Cup Plain Flour
½ Cup Salt
2 Teaspoons Cream of Tartar
1 Tablespoon Oil
1 Cup warm water
2 Tablespoons Green Food Colouring
¼ Cup red lentils

1.Pour all dry ingredients, flour, salt and cream of tartar together in a saucepan.
2.Add water, oil and food colouring to dry ingredients.
3.Whisk before heating to remove any lumps.
4.Cook over medium heat, constantly stirring until it becomes a thick blob.
5.Then turn out onto a clean surface and knead into a smooth ball. Be careful the play dough will be very hot! Use a little bit of flour if the play dough is sticky.
6.When the play dough has cooled, gradually fold and knead in the yellow split peas/lentils
7.Store in a plastic zip lock bag or air tight container.

Now create your scene. We painted a brown paper towel roll as our log and we used the blue fishy painting from our week 4 curriculum as our pond!

Mold your frogs into little balls and even add googly eyes if you have some!
Have fun playing, singing and counting with your child as you explore together.