Croak! Said the Toad Lyrics
A hungry toad is off to the garden for slugs and snails, and a frog decides to go fishing for worms in the stream. Two hungry neighbors, two dinners.
Croak! Said the Toad
"Croak!" said the Toad, "I'm hungry, I think;
To-day I've had nothing to eat or to drink;
I'll crawl to a garden and jump through the pales,
And there I'll dine nicely on slugs and on snails."
"Ho, ho!" quoth the Frog, "is that what you mean?
Then I'll hop away to the next meadow stream;
There I will drink, and eat worms and slugs too,
And then I shall have a good dinner like you."
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/croak-said-the-toad/
- Type
- Animal Rhymes
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does Croak! Said the Toad Mean?
The toad crawls to a garden, jumping through the pales (the fence posts), to eat slugs and snails. The frog says "Ho, ho!" and hops off to a stream to eat worms and slugs. Both are describing what real toads and frogs eat, which makes them very useful in a garden.
History and Origin
Andrew Lang included the rhyme in The Nursery Rhyme Book (1897). Gardeners have long welcomed toads, because one toad can eat a great many slugs and insects that would otherwise eat the vegetables.
Learning Activities
- Toad or frog: look at pictures and spot the differences: toads have dry, bumpy skin, frogs smooth, damp skin.
- Garden helpers: talk about animals that help gardens, like toads, hedgehogs and birds.
- Two voices: one child croaks the toad's lines, the other the frog's.