Flying Frogs: A Kiddie Pool Craft and Game
Turn rocks into frogs for this toad-ally awesome game.
Submitted by
Wade Wojcak
Wade Wojcak
Your kids have an enthusiasm for the great outdoors that rivals Bindi Irwin's. Unfortunately, your backyard is more of a Little Tikes jungle than an Amazon rain forest. Let them run a little wild by helping them craft a rock frog habitat in their kiddie pool. Maybe it's not exactly vine swinging and snake chasing, but an afternoon of pond hopping in the backyard is slightly safer ... and will seem almost as exotic.
- Kiddie Pool
- Contact paper or a green permanent marker:To make the lily pads
- Smooth, small rocks:For the frogs
- Tempera paint:Any color you choose
- Googly eyes:For that authentic amphibian look
- Craft foam
- Pen and scissors
- Hot-glue gun and glue sticks
Send your children outside to search for smooth rocks to turn into frogs. Enjoy one blissful moment of peace while they are occupied outdoors!
Have the kids thoroughly wash the stones to prep them for painting.
Encourage them to get the dirt out from under their nails as well!
Help your children transform the rocks into frogs. They don't all have to be the garden green variety. Bust out red, pink, blue and purple and create fabulous psychedelic frogs with polka dots, stripes and swirls. Too bad Mother Nature isn't more of an artiste like you!
When the paint has dried, glue on the googly eyes with the hot glue gun. Warning! Children should never operate a hot-glue gun!
Add froggy legs. Help the kids trace frog leg shapes onto craft foam and cut them out.
Use the hot-glue gun to attach the legs to the bottom of the frog stone.
As the frogs dry, have the kids draw lily pad shapes onto the contact paper, then cut them out. If you want perma-lilies in your pool, have them draw them right onto the bottom with green permanent marker.
For contact paper lilies, peel the backing off and stick them onto the bottom of the pool (before the water is in it, of course).
Fill the pool with water.- Tell the kids to grab their frogs and gather round the edge of the pool.
- Time for target practice! Tell them to toss the frogs into the pool and to aim for the lily pads.
- Meanwhile, grab a beach towel, lather on the sunscreen and catch some rays while the kids destroy something you don't treasure—for once!
- Don't forget summer safety! Never leave children unattended around water. Even a few inches can be dangerous!
- We've got even more fun summer activities!
Thanks to Karen Baicker
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