The Frog Prince retold by Edith Tarcov

Book Genre: Fiction

Publisher Information: Scholastic Cartwheel Books, 1974 (33 pages)

Summary: A beautiful princess has a golden ball, her favorite plaything and accidentally tosses into a well. She can not reach it and sees a frog in the well who offers to get the golden ball for her. She is ever so thankful but the frog asked for something in return. The princess offers her silken dress, her pearl necklace, her crown, but the fog has no use for such things. In return for the ball, he wants to eat with her at her table, sleep with her on her silk pillow, and her promise to be his companion forever. She says she will agree to do this, he retrieved the golden ball for her and she ran away fom the frog, breaking her promise. While dining that evening, there is a Knock at the door and it is the frog reminding her of her promises. The princess's father reminded her to keep her promise and she does, much to her dismay. They dine together, spend time together, and when it comes time to sleep on her silk pillow, she throws him against the wall because she can not tolerate this frog any longer. The frog immediately turned into a prince and told her when she placed him on her silken pillow, she broke the spell of a wicked witch. The next day they were married.

Book Level: 2.7

Book Interest: 4-8

Personal rating and reason for rating: (*** Good) Very Predictable but that is probably because I've read so many fair tales. Young children would enjoy a read aloud of this book, there are lots of rat a tat tats, a and slurps and splishes to read . Older students who are able to read independently will enjoy this book and those still struggling will see alot of basic sight words with which to practice.

Integration of text into study units:

Science: The students will do a unit on the life cycle of a frog, their natural habitat and diet. A student will bring in a container with aquatic frogs for the duration of the unit for direct observation of the students.

Writing: If I were a prince or princess and I was trapped in an animal's body, I would be a/an... a writing prompt for the students using words from the word wall created from words from the text. Another view would be, After the prince and princess got married, they...

Language Arts: Pulling words from the text that will be used on the word wall. A word chain could be made from egg, tadpole, ....

Reading: This book would be a good segue for fairy tales and the lessons learned by the characters is the story.

Social Studies: Are there real Prince and Princess's in the world? What is their life like, where do they live, and what is their job. discussion of Royal families with pictures would be a fun unit.
Also, keeping promises, how do we feel when we break a promise or someone breaks a promise to us, discussion with class.

Geography: The students will find countries with castles and royal homes. The teacher will provide pictures of these homes, including the Biltmore's House in our own state.

Art: Have the boys illustrate a picture of how they perceived the look of a frog prince and the girls would draw what a princess would look like, and some could do a picture of how the witch might have looked.

Possible problems or difficulties: Scaring the students talking about witches. Other than that , I see no problems.