From Egg to Frog
Watch a frog grow.
What would your life be like as a frog? You would have to know how to swim and hop. Frogs are amphibians (am-FI-bee-uhnz). Amphibians spend part of their lives in water and part on land. Most have smooth, wet skin. Most amphibians hatch from eggs.

Lea about the life cycle of a frog. A life cycle shows the stages in an animal’s life.

(1) Egg
Most frogs come from tiny eggs. A mother frog lays eggs in or near water. A frog can lay thousands of eggs at once. The eggs are in large clumps. A jelly coating makes the eggs slippery. That protects them from being eaten by other animals.

(2) Tadpole
A tiny tadpole grows inside each egg. A few weeks later, the tadpole hatches. A tadpole lives in water. It breathes using gills. It uses its long tail to swim and moves like a fish. Tadpoles eat tiny water plants called algae (AL-jee).

(3) Froglet
During the next few weeks, the tadpole grows legs and toes. The tadpole’s gills grow smaller, and the tadpole starts to grow lungs. It swims to the top of the water to breathe air. The tadpole starts to look more like a frog. It is called a froglet.

(4) Frog
The froglet’s tail gets smaller and soon disappears. Now the frog is an adult. It leaves the water and lives mostly on land. It breathes using lungs. It eats insects, worms, and snails. Mother frogs retu to the water to lay eggs. Then the life cycle begins again.
Copyright © 2009 Weekly Reader Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Weekly Reader is a registered trademark of Weekly Reader Corporation.