Resembling the traditional game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," this game challenges students to try to correctly adhere a tail onto a picture of a tadpole body. To enhance the activity, allow each student a turn to appropriately place varying sized frog legs and arms, facial features and a smaller tail onto a transforming frog and then take the tail away when the tadpole has become a full frog.
Blow up one small balloon for each child and tie a piece of yarn or ribbon onto the stem of the balloon to create a tadpole. Encourage students to draw eyes and a mouth on the polliwog with a black washable marker. Search for tadpole song lyrics sung to traditional nursery rhymes on the Internet for students to sing with their tadpole creations.
From the pet store or your local pond, gather two or three tadpoles and place them in a container of pond water. Allow the preschoolers to observe and discuss the changes that they notice in the tadpoles from day to day. You will only feed your tadpoles approximately twice before they turn into full-fledged frogs; but use caution, as overfeeding them will make the water unhealthy for the growing tadpoles. Tadpole food may be purchased at your local pet store, or you may use a piece of lettuce to feed them. When they become frogs, you may keep them as class pets or let them go in a nearby pond as a field trip.
Show the preschool students in your class four pictures of the life cycle of a frog beginning with the tadpole and ending with the frog. On the backside of a paper plate, encourage children to draw and color each stage of the life cycle around the plate in a circle shape. Sandwich the decorated paper plate and a second one with beans or macaroni and green ribbon or streamers sticking out between the plates as tadpole tails to make a life cycle tambourine.