What’s the Difference Between a Frog and a Toad?

 

What a wonderful book; hop on over to your library or onto Amazon and grab yourself a copy today.  Last month we studied frogs with the girls and this was by far the best book we came across during our unit.

Book Review: 
What’s the Difference Between a Frog and a Toad?
by Mary Firestone & illustrated by Bandeline-Dacey

Information:  Each page set offers an interesting comparison between frogs and toads. The information is also a nice mix between “in my backyard” and the forests of the world.  In the book The Last Child in the Woods Richard Louv describes how children know about the plight of the polar bear, but don’t know anything about some of the native plants and animals in their very own state.  Firestone strikes a nice balance.  She offers a good collection of common facts, but occasionally throws in boxes with more worldly information.

Illustrations:  The book itself is a piece of art.  The watercolor illustrations are detailed and absolutely gorgeous.

Copy:  The book is well written and a pleasure to read.  The language is at an elementary level; it is not too simple or complex.  They also offer a nice section in the back of the book with fun facts, a glossary, an index, and additional places on the web to learn more.

If you have a frog or toad fanatic at your house we also recommend the David Attenborough documentary Life in Cold Blood.  Our girls loved the variety of frogs and other amphibians.

This month we plan on studying trees!  We hope to practice backyard tree identification and also learn a bit about the rainforests.  We have a trip to the “Rainforest Adventure” exhibit at the Minnesota’s Children Museum planned.  If you have any tree projects, lessons or books to recommend we’d love to hear about it!

Keep on hopping,

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Also, check out a few photos of our summer frogging adventures!