Pet Rock Frogs

Today we will make pet rocks painted to look like frogs. These frog rock pets will later be used to help children learn to recognize letters and begin to read.

First we will take a walk down to the river where the rocks have been smoothed by years of tumbling in the water. Choose rocks about the size of your fist. Look for rocks with a frog shape that could easily sit on a flat surface. Imagine your pet frog sitting on a lily pad.

_{Photo Credit: Frog Shaped Rock by MonkeyMyshkin
Used under creative commons.}

Before you paint your rocks to look like frogs you will need to scrub them clean. They need to have all the dirt and any oil washed off so that the paint will stick. Then let them dry overnight. We placed our rocks on the wood stove to make sure that they were fully dried before attempting to paint them.

_{Photo Credit: Washing Rocks by Wonderlane
Used under creative commons.}

Use a primer to paint your rock and let it dry for about an hour. While the paint is drying, make some sketches to get an idea of just how you would like your frog to look. Then paint your rock a nice froggy green. At this point you will be painting an overall green coat for a base. The details of the frog will be added soon. "Patience grasshopper!"

Using a fine soft paintbrush, add details to your pet rock frog to make it look like a frog. You might want to look at photographs of real frogs or consult your nature journal from when you visited the frog pond.

Add a large frog mouth and eyes. Behind the eyes are the frog's ears that look like large circles. Paint large feet and legs in the back and smaller feet in the front.

Set your frog on a flat surface to dry overnight.

     Have you ever noticed that frogs are lighter colored on the bottom than on the top? Paint a lighter shade of green or greenish white on the underbelly of your pet rock frog. While it is drawing, brainstorm names for your frogs. Your frogs should have both a first and last name.

     Once the underbelly is dry, write the name of your frog on the bottom.

     Over the next couple of days, paint the entire Pet Rock Frog with several coats of clear glossy polyurethane. The polyurethane will help to protect your beautiful paint job as well as give your frog a shiny look that reminds us that the skin of frogs in real life must stay moist.

     Make sure your frog is completely dry before playing the following games with your Pet Rock Frog...

Make lily pads from felt squares. Write a word on each lily pad to match the words written on your Pet Rock Frogs. Children place the frogs on the correct lily pad and then write the name or word on a recording sheet. The recording sheet could have lily pads and or frogs for the children to write their answers on.

Place your Pet Rock Frogs in alphabetical order. Once you have started painting frogs there will be no stopping you. Soon you will have 5, 10, 15... maybe even 100 Pet Rock Frogs. That is when the fun really begins.

You could name 26 frogs with a different initial letter for each frog? How about Bobby Bullfrog, Carrie Croaker, Freddy Frog, Lucia Lily pad, Molly MosquitoEater, Peter Pollywog, Quentin Quagmire, Rachel Rib-bit, Sally Smile, Tommy Tadpole etc.