Goliath's Secret: A Review, Giant Frogs, Lifecycles & Sign language

I am so pleased to be able to share a great Picture book called Goliath's Secret written by Bonnie Feuer and illustrated by Sharai Platt. Following the review are some fun ways we 'stretched the book' and it's message.

Told in prose and rhyme, this story is about a group of West African animals watching a Goliath Frog. At first they are confused when he will not respond to them. Throughout the day each Animal tries to get him to say something using they way they each think is the best. Still the Goliath says nothing. By nightfall all the Animals are feeling sorry him until he ultimately shows them that he has no problem making himself understood.

The illustrations are beautiful and show off the beauty of the African river habitat. Overall the book spreads an important message of Caring, Diversity and Acceptance. It teaches an important lesson: we should not assume that there is 'something wrong' with someone that does not behave how we expect they should. It also touches on the need to respect all people regardless of their abilities.

 Learning more about Goliath Frogs:

• Endangered Animals for Kid from Konicaminolta.com provides a very good overview of the Goliath Frog and the reason for the decline in Population.
• A Short video showing a Goliath frog up close from Arkive.com..what an amazing animal!
• Animal Diversity Web from The Musuem of Zoology (University of Michigan) is an Amazing resource! It is a lot of text and perhaps a bit much for younger grades but still worth a read together for lots interesting facts,

Here is what Miss K discovered when we did some research together on the Internet.
The Goliath is the largest Frog in the world, weighing around 7 pounds and up to a foot in length! You might think it would have a very loud croak. However, this species does not have a vocal sack and so is mute.

Different ways to communicate:
We discussed what it might mean if a Person is unable to speak. Both kids were able to think of different ways to communicate without their voices. Together we all learnt how to sign 'Frog' in American Sign language and Finger spell our names.
Some other methods of Non verbal communication we talked about were Body language, Written words, Braille and Art.

Making a 'Pond Life cycle flap book'

There are so many amazing Free Montessori Frog resources available. Here are the ones I used with Mini Piwi (Pre K)

• Frog Match up and Memory game from Montessori Print Shop
• Parts of a Frog Nomenclature Cards & Book from Montessori Print Shop
• Frog Life cycle sequence cards from Montessori Mom (these are the images we used on the Pond craft)

One of my favorite resources this week was only 99c. 'A Life Cycle App' is full of information about the Life cycles and Cycles of a variety of Insects, Frogs, Rocks, the Moon and more...it was will worth a download on my Kindle!

As chance would have it, a few days after this project we had a visitor on our front porch...

This guy was 'only' around 3 inches long and a Toad but we decided that was as close as we were going to get to a Goliath Frog in Texas!

I come from a long line of Reptile 'Phobs' (ironic since New Zealand is Snake and Giant Lizard Free). My kids are fascinated with them...from a safe distance. How do you feel about Frogs, Snakes and Lizards?

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