Five Little Speckled Frogs

U.S.A.

HISTORY AND SONG NOTES

Five Little Speckled Frogs is an American folksong. This story song works well as a group singing and fingerplay activity, as a counting activity, for group movement, or as a beginning musical dramatic play or pre-literacy activity.

In addition to the text in the score above, you count down the number of frogs until there are no more remaining.

Verse 2: Four little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs. Yum, yum! One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool. Now there are three green speckled frogs.

Verse 3: Three little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs. Yum, yum! One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool. Now there are two green speckled frogs.

Verse 4: Two little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs. Yum, yum! One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool. Now there is one green speckled frog.

Verse 5: Once little speckled frog, sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs. Yum, yum! One (he/she) jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool. Now there are no green speckled frogs.

Group SINGING and fingerplay

This game works well as a group singing and fingerplay activity, where the children and teachers use their hands to show the actions of the frogs. This is an opportunity for the teacher to model the beat of the song through the frog movements.

With one hand, hold up the number of fingers that corresponds with the number of ducks in each verse, and then bounce your hand along with the beat of the music. When the frog splashes in the pool, jump your hand down to show the splash, and when your hand comes back up, show one less finger/frog.

Part 1: Five little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs… the hand with five fingers up bounces to the beat of the music; Yum yum! It can be fun to rub your belly with the yum yum!

Part 2: One jumped into the pool, where it was nice a cool… show the frog jumping in, or one finger jumping in

Ending: Now there are four green speckled frogs… put down one finger, leaving 4 remaining

Bounce

This song makes an excellent lap bounce for babies, infants, or toddlers in adult/child settings, or by older children bouncing or moving on their own. The children may enjoy if you vary the tempo of the song while alternating the speed of the bounce to match. Click here for more information and suggestions about bounces.

Group Movement

The children may enjoy moving in various ways to this song, either together in a circle or in a line moving throughout the room, as your space allows. Moving like frogs, hopping, is one option, but they may enjoy finding different ways to move, then adding a big jump when the frog “splashes” into the pool. Click here to read more about movement activities.

Musical Dramatic Play Activity

Preschool aged children enjoy building dramatic play activities from story songs like this one. A first step for younger children could be to try integrating props into the game, such as stuffed animals or scarves to represent the frogs.

Once they are familiar with the game, the children may enjoy acting out the story themselves. You can try having many frogs who move around the room with the music; it works well for the children to have extended periods of time to enjoy jumping and moving like frogs. They then make a big jump when it’s time to splash into the pool. It may be difficult for the children to count down as the song does, with one more child not coming back per verse. You may want to first try having them all hop and all splash, and once they are more confident, you can have them take turns jumping in, counting down the children/frogs that are remaining after each verse.

Musical pre-literacy activity

A way to first integrate pre-literacy concepts into the song would be to create five frog pictures, and then using the pictures to illustrate the frogs sitting on the log and then jumping away, decreasing the number of frogs that the children see. They will enjoy stopping in between each verse to count how many frogs are left. The works well after you have sung, moved, and explored the song as described above; the children will be more focused on a pre-literacy task if they are already familiar with the song.

Additionally, there are many beautifully illustrated books based on this song. Singing a book is a wonderful pre-literacy activity, and the children enjoy seeing the pictures and may sing along, or excitedly comment, as they become more familiar and confident. We suggest setting this up as you would a typical group book reading session, making sure that the children have plenty of space to see the pictures, and positioning yourself so that the pages face the children as much as possible. Also, feel free to stop and pause between each verse and ask questions, or to count the frogs together.