Frog Games

We love playing games! What kid doesn’t? And when I can sneak in some learning and education into the game play it makes the whole experience a big win! With this frog game kids create their own origami frogs that actually hop, leading to lots of educational game play.

FROG GAME WITH JUMPING ORIGAMI FROGS – A STEAM EDUCATION CHALLENGE

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My kids are obsessed with frogs. We live near a lake and they often find lots of frogs in our backyard. So the idea of creating a frog game was met with lots of excitement.

Origami For Kids

In this activity kids get to try their hand at origami. Origami is a folded paper art form that has been popular throughout history in Japan, China and Europe and gained popularity recently around the world. It is a relatively inexpensive art form, creating 3D sculptures out of paper.

Origami is a fantastic kids activity because it helps develop fine motor skills, visual-spatial skills, and engineering concepts. Plus it is budget friendly, perfect for the classroom or group activities.

Frog Games STEAM Project

In our Frog Games activity we have a great STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) project.

Engineering and building the frogs.
Art forms as they create their frogs from paper.
Math when they play the hopping frogs game at the end.
With a little investigation you can also explore the physics behind how the frogs spring, hop and jump. Adding in Science.

That’s 4 pillars in one activity, which counts as a great STEAM win!

Frog Game Supplies

To do this frog game with origami jumping frogs you really don’t need much in the way of supplies. Just remember origami is a practice in precision and patience. It might take a few tries for you to master your frog creation skills.

Origami paper
Cupcake liners
Sharpies

A quick note on origami paper!

Some people wonder if you can do these origami jumping frogs with regular paper. You can definitely try, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work.

Origami paper comes already cut to a 6 inch square. Plus, the paper is thin, making it perfect for folding and in particular creating the kind of tension we need to make these froggies jump.

Although you can use other paper it simply may not work as well, or not at all. Solid color origami paper pretty is actually quite cheap, click on the images above to get more details on current pricing. If you do not use origami paper, you will need to cut your paper to a 6 inch square before starting the folding steps.

Origami Frog that Jumps Step-by-Step Tutorial

Here is detailed, step-by-step instructions and photos on how to make an origami jumping frog.

Start with your 6″x6″ square of origami paper.

Fold the origami paper in half.

Keeping the paper folded, pull the top right hand corner over to form a triangle on the top half of the paper. Crease.

Unfold it and repeat on each of the other corners.

Unfold your paper and you should have two ‘x’ shapes and a diamond in the center from your folds.

This is the trickiest part!

On the top half, pull inwards from your ‘x’ shape to form a triangle. Crease it into place. It should look like a little house.

Repeat on the bottom. Your paper will be folded up nicely into a diamond.

Starting from the top, fold the top left corner of the top triangle up. Crease.

Repeat on the right side.

Fold the top part of the left side of the piece you just folded upwards, back down. This is going to form the frog’s arms.

Repeat on the other side.

Repeat these steps on the bottom half now to create the legs.

You have just formed the frog’s arms and legs! You are almost done!

Flip the paper over. Fold the bottom part of the diamond in between the two bottom legs upward. Crease.

Note where you did this crease, you will need it in a future step.

Take the left side of the diamond and pull it towards the center to form a triangle. Crease.

Repeat on the right side. You should see your frog forming now!

Flip your frog over.

Find the part of the frog that you folded upwards 5 pictures above this one.

Here is where you need that crease you noted above!

You are going to fold the frog in half here. Be sure to crease well! This is where the ‘spring’ from his jump will come from.

Fold in half back downwards the part you just folded up.

Voila! Your frog is formed!

How To Make Your Origami Frog Jump

Now we have made our frogs it’s time to start them hopping and jumping. Remember those critical steps in bold above? Those folds and creases are what give your frogs their spring and bounce!

To make the frog jump, simply push down on it’s back legs and release! It will flip and jump!

If your frog won’t hop, go back and check your folds and creases carefully against the steps above. They need to be exactly right for this to work. If you continue to have difficulties it may be that you are not using the right origami paper.

Now we have our awesome jumping frogs it’s time for some games!

There are a few games you can create easily with cupcake liners and a sharpie pen.

Frog Sight Words Game

You can do a sight word game, with different words in each cupcake liner. If the frog lands in the cupcake liner have them read the word, or create a sentence using the word.

Another variation would be to use just letters in your cupcake liners and have the kids spell or come up with a word that starts with that letter (all depending on age and level of ability).

Frog Math Game

We loved our Switchgrip Math Game so much, it was only natural that the kids would enjoy a froggy version of the game. In this case, place numbers in each cupcake liner. Have the kids hop their frogs into various cupcake liners and then have them do calculations using the numbers based on their current level of ability.

Engineering Frog Game

Turn those cupcake liners upside down and place a craft stick between two. See who can hop their frog over the craft stick. Raise the height of the sticks to see how high your froggy can go!

Invent a New Frog Game!

Let your kids go crazy with their new frogs and see what games they can create on their own!

MORE STEAM PROJECTS & LEARNING

Rainbow Salt Circuits
Circuit Flowers
Mission Lego Rescue – Wind Powered Experiment
Colour Changing Oobleck