El Coquí: Lessons Using the Folktale and Creating Puppets

My students are working on a cultural unit on Puerto Rico. I paralleled a lot of the same lessons in the  Mexican cultural unit (click here and here to read those.) One of the lessons that is new this year is the lesson on El Coquí. Read more about the Puerto Rican coqui on the National Wildlife Federation's website. This lesson is very quick and meant to have students make a connection between El Coquí and Puerto Rico. You could definitely expand on this lesson and take it in more a science direction. My focus was more on the cultural significance of the animal, in folklore and in popular culture in Puerto Rico.

The Sound:

The coquí frogs are found on a number of islands throughout the Caribbean, but only the ones in Puerto Rico sing, and only the males in Puerto Rico are vocal. The sound they make sounds really similar to their name. Here's a video I showed to demonstrate their sound.

Then I thought it would be nice to introduce a long term practice of a guided mediation using the sound of the frogs and rainfall as a new classroom tradition. While playing the video below, on the same day of the week we would end our class with the students doing a guided meditation for 1-5 minutes.

The Legend:

Here is the legend of the Coquí as told by Antonio Pastor on VamosRincon that I shared with my students

There was once a beautiful goddess who fell in love with Coquí, the tribal chief’s son. When he went out to fish, she would make sure that he came back with a big catch, and he would sing praises to her. One evening, she came to him in the form of a Taíno maiden, and they fell in love. She told Coquí that she would come back the next evening at moonrise, but the next evening came, and with it came the evil Juracán. The sky blackened and his winds howled and the goddess tried to protect her lover, but Juracán snatched him away and she never saw him again. She did not know how she could go on without her beautiful Coquí, so she created this tiny frog that will forever call for him: “Co-kee! Co-kee! The Coqui’s call can be heard throughout the island, a constant reminder of the goddess’s unyielding love for Coquí and a symbol of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of heartbreak and tragedy.

 Frog Puppets:

I then had students create their own frog puppets with the story they just heard on it's belly. The story is meant to symbolize the expansion of the frog's chest when it makes its sound. 

To make the puppets you need brown paper bags, brown construction paper, and circles with the story printed on them.

Consider supplementing the lesson with:

Music: playing the Dora the Explorer song El Coqui in the background as students work.

Reading these stories:

 De aquí como el coquí [Coquí in the City] by Nomar Perez

 

 Coqui (¡Hola! Hello!)  by Valery Ortiz

The Legend of the Coquí by Georgina Lzaro

 

Callaloo: The Legend of the Golden Coquí by Marjuan Canady

 

 

 My students really loved these puppets! They were making the coquí sounds all the rest of the day.