Frog's Big Change
Life cycles: put the stages in order, from egg to frog and egg to butterfly
How it plays
Pictures of a life cycle are mixed up: eggs, a tadpole, a frog; or eggs, a caterpillar, a chrysalis, a butterfly. Your child puts them in order, from the first to the last, and then Ruby Roo says the whole cycle from the start. Three pictures first, then four, then the frog's five (with legs growing, and a froglet with its tail shrinking). The pictures and words are the ones in the Nature Walk's "Watch it grow", where each stage is stepped through one at a time.
What it's for
Life cycles: put the stages in order, from egg to frog and egg to butterfly. It adapts as your child plays: after a few rounds that go well it steps up a little, and after a couple of hard ones it quietly steps back. The level number only ever goes up.
There is no score to lose and no way to fail. A wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's won.
Away from the screen: Watch something grow
About two minutes, with things most homes have.
- Look for tadpoles in a pond or a creek (look, don't take them), or for a caterpillar on a leaf in the garden.
- Go back each week and see what's changed. Draw what you see.
- Talk about what comes next: what will the tadpole grow first? What will the caterpillar turn into?
Three questions to ask while they play
- What does a tadpole grow first, its back legs or its front legs?
- Where does a butterfly lay her eggs?
- Can you think of something else that changes as it grows? (You did!)
Play together
Things to say or ask
- What happens first? Then what?
- How does a tadpole change?
- You put them in order. Tell me the story.
Taking turns on one device: Take turns placing a stage. The other player says what comes next before it's placed.
Talk-about cards: a question a day for a week, for the car or the dinner table. Print them, or read them from your phone.
If they find it hard
Life cycles go round: the frog lays eggs and it starts again. Draw the stages in a circle together, with arrows. Or try Flying Fox's Story Order first: putting three pictures in order, first, next and last.
A sheet to print
Print the Frog's Big Change sheet
One A4 page, in black and white or colour.
What it practises
- Life cycles. How living things grow and change: egg, tadpole, frog; egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. Life cycles are a Year 3 outcome, so this is a gentle early start.
AC9S3U01 (Science, Year 3); AC9S1U01 (Science, Year 1) - Putting a story in order. Retelling a story from its pictures: what happened first, next and last.
AC9EFLE03 (English, Foundation); AC9EFLE05 (English, Foundation); AC9EFLY05 (English, Foundation) - Australian animals. What animals look like and where they live (My animal friends cards).
AC9SFU01 (Science, Foundation); AC9S1U01 (Science, Year 1)
The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for three- to five-year-olds) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.
What it costs, and what we collect
Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.
Where it lives
Frog's Big Change lives in The Bobbing Billabong — numbers and counting. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.