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Aesop's Fable: The Frog and the Ox
Read, print and discuss the fable. Prints well in portrait and landscape mode. View in projectable and printable PDF format. Review the complementary activities below the fable.
The Frog and the Ox
One warm afternoon, a big ox came down to the pond for a drink. Thud, thud, splash! He was so large and heavy that he didn’t see a tiny frog resting in the reeds. The little frog was gone in an instant.
Later, the other young frogs gathered near the water. “Where’s our brother?” one asked. “A giant beast came stomping through!” said another. “He was huge—like a walking mountain!”
A nearby frog, who liked to show off, puffed out his chest. “Was he as big as this?” he asked, swelling up. “No, way bigger!” the others said. The frog puffed up more. “What about this?” “Still bigger!”
The frog huffed and puffed, trying to grow larger and larger. “Surely he wasn’t this big!” he grunted. But frogs aren’t meant to be ox-sized. With one last puff— pop!—the show-off frog vanished in a puff of pond bubbles.
The other frogs blinked. Then one whispered, “Maybe it’s better to be the best frog you can be… not the biggest.”
Don’t try to be something you’re not. Just be your wonderful self.
