Jump, Frog, Jump!: Kindergartners Compare Books with Poems

Has it been an entire year since I read Robert Kalan's wonderful book, Jump, Frog, Jump! ?

Thankfully, I can still happily picture in my mind's eye those kindergartners bouncing in their seats as we shared in the reading of the refrain,

"Jump, Frog, Jump!"

For those who don't know it, Jump, Frog, Jump! is the story of how a frog escapes his predators. It's a cumulative tale in which the frog tries to catch a fly without getting caught itself.  In addition to being lots of fun, Kalan's tale shows the place of a frog in the natural world.  In so many ways, it's a great book to read to young children:

• It's perfect for shared reading because of the easy refrain, "Jump, frog, jump !
• It's wonderful for teaching the reading comprehension skills of identifying cause-and-effect, recalling characters, and sequencing events in a story.
• It can be linked to non-fiction reading about frogs, pond animals, habitats, and ecology.

And, now, if you'd like, you can use it to compare and contrast two different texts (aka "Common Core objectives!")  a book and my poem:

If you'd like a free downloadable copy of my poem,
please go to my new TpT store, Here Hugo!  Read on...

Here's how I have used it as a compare-and-contrast activity.  I recommend using a Venn Diagram, either on the whiteboard, roll paper, or with two hula hoops and lily pads cut out of green construction paper! If you use the latter idea, as the students offer a comparison or a contrast, write it on a lilypad and have them drop it into the correct section of the overlapping hula hoops:

For use of poems, in general, please check out my earlier blog post

http://goodbyekindergarten.blogspot.com/2017/12/songs-and-poetry-binders-in-kindergarten.html

And now for some news about which

I

am jumping for joy...

I have finally opened a TpT store.  I'm calling it Here Hugo! (Do you get it? Here you go!)

This is my store logo.

I hope  TpT is yet another way to share my passion for good teaching.  At this point, practically everything I've listed on TpT is for free.   I have always loved the sharing part of teaching and I feel very satisfied knowing lots and lots of people are using my materials.  I am selling a few products at very low prices, though, if they can be used over long periods of time or if they took a very long time (like a bazillion hours!) to produce.

I hope you will check out my TpT store!