Why Frogs and Snakes Never Play Together

Printer-friendly version

The Plot
A chance meeting of a family of frogs and a family of snakes in the woods one day allows wonderful and fun new friendships to be made. Later, when the siblings tell their parents about their new friends, they are told to never play together again. Find out why in this easy-to-produce play that teaches about the serious topic of prejudice.

Understudies
There is no need for casting to become competitive. The casting can include various understudies who take turns playing lead roles as well as participating in the group roles of trees and flowers. Also, the Narrator can be more than one student.

Costumes
Keep it simple: green T-shirts for frogs, gray T-shirts for snakes, yellow for sun, blue for moon, brown for trees, bright colors for flowers, white for wind and black for the narrator and pourquoi instructor. To add art lessons to the production of this play, have students use poster board to make sun, moon, wind, flower and tree faces.

Props
Father Frog needs a large newspaper with a heading The Daily Fly. Parent animals can be sitting watching television, playing cards or cooking. These activities may be pantomimed, without sets, or you may create simple sets to accompany the play.

Suggested Uses of the Play

• Back-to-School night
• Parent-Teacher night
• As a traveling show where older classes perform for younger classes in the same school
• As a traveling show where one elementary, middle or high school travels to a local elementary school
• As a traveling show to perform for community groups

Options for Early Grades
This play works for preschool children and other young children if parents or guardians read the lines and the children pantomime. Children also can draw the characters, put them on sticks and perform the play as a puppet show.

Discussion Questions

• What did the frogs and snakes do when they met each other in the forest?
• What did they learn later that night from their parents?
• What do the youngest frog and snake do at the very end of the story that brings us hope? Why does it bring us hope?

Write an Alternative Ending

• What would happen if the frogs and snakes continued to play together?

• What would the parents do if they met?What would happen if the two families got together at a park and got to know each other?

• The story can have an alternative ending written by the children to express a more tolerant view. These questions can give students ideas for writing their own ending: