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Celebrate Passover by Making your own Plague of Frogs!

Published 03.26.2009 | Permanent Link | Comments (16)

Frogs! Frogs everywhere!

By Brenda Ponnay

a plague of frogs!

One morning when Pharaoh awoke in his bed,
There were frogs in his bed and frogs on his head.
Frogs on his nose and frogs on his toes.
Frogs here, frogs there!
Frogs were jumping everywhere!*

frogs on her head, frogs in her bed


Can you imagine waking up and finding your house covered in frogs? Frogs in your sink, frogs in your pantry, frogs in your breakfast...take a shower and have frogs rain down on your head? Ew!

If you celebrate Passover then you probably already know all about those frogs. As the story is told in the book of Exodus, frogs were the second plague that God sent down on the Egyptians to change Pharaoh's mind about keeping the Jews in slavery. Unfortunately an infestation of frogs did not change his mind and nine other horrible plagues were needed before the Jews were allowed to go free.

Today Jews celebrate Passover to remember those plagues and how the Jews were set free from slavery in Egypt. Passover is a time of rejoicing and thankfulness. The word "Passover" itself actually comes from the last plague which was when the Angel of Death killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt except in those households that had the blood of a lamb painted over their door step. God commanded the Jews to paint blood over their door step to spare them as the Angel of Death "passed over."

While the story of Passover is no light matter, I think it's safe to have a little fun with frogs to help us remember the second plague. I wouldn't want my house to be infested with frogs but they sure are fun to make out of paper! We decided to make a pretend plague of frogs take over our house and here is how we did it:

painting frog skin

First we made some "frog skin" by painting with cheap kids' acrylic paint on top of newsprint. Big sloppy strokes were fine because I wanted my frogs to have texture.

making frog skin

Then we added some warts by stamping a pencil eraser into yellow paint. My daughter added some bigger spots by stamping with a wine-bottle cork.

frog skin paper

After the paint was dry, I cut the now somewhat-stiff painted newspaper into big squares. I didn't measure. My squares were roughly 7 inches, though some were bigger and some smaller.

steps

I folded my square in half and then in half again, just like you would fold it to make a snowflake. But instead of cutting snowflake shapes out of my square, I cut out half a frog. If you don't feel confident in your frog-cutting skills, have no fear! I have made you a template that you can download here!

It's pretty easy to follow. Just be careful to cut the top smaller arm all the way off the edge. If you don't then you won't end up with frogs that are holding hands. You'll have a bunch of separated frogs. That's fine too. Personally, I sort of like my frogs floating down from the sky as if they were doing aerobatics.

a frog snowflake!

When you unfold your frog snowflake it should look like the above. You can add eyes with a crayon or marker pen or add ooglie bubble eyes like we did. We always love the ooglie booglie bubble eyes in my house. They make every craft better!

putting eyeballs on

decorating the window with frogs

Then we taped them to the window and pretended that frogs were raining down on us.

frog crafts

We had a lot of "frog skin" paper left over so we cut it up Eric Carle style and made some more frogs! You can never get enough frogs when you're recreating a plague of frogs.

a frog mask!

Frogs here, frogs there, frogs jumping everywhere!


Passover starts at sunset on Wednesday, the 8th of April and continues for 7 days until Wednesday, the 15th of April.

*Popular children's song for Passover titled "One Morning." Author unknown.

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Comments (16):

lynne said:

Ingenious idea once again. Also thank you for reminding me of the true meaning of passover.

Posted on March 26, 2009 11:14

anna b-bonkers said:

I love, love, love this idea. B, you amaze me with the creativity!
Much better than locusts!

Posted on March 26, 2009 11:42

anon said:

Just want to point out that passover actually starts at sundown on the 8th, the first full day is the 9th...

____________
Editor: Thank you! We will make the correction. We love our community!

Posted on March 26, 2009 16:02

leslie said:

such a great idea!
i'm so gonna make those...esp. because i call my daughter "froggy" :)

thanks brenda!

Posted on March 26, 2009 17:43

bethany said:

love it! googly eyes do make everything, don't they?

Posted on March 26, 2009 20:25

margalit said:

Brenda, you did SUCH a great job on the post. I'm so proud of you. And those frogs. Too freaking cute for words.

Now it's time to work on the other 9 plagues. And if you'd like to borrow my first born son, be my guest! :-)

Posted on March 26, 2009 21:24

wow gold said:

Yeah, this is such a nice post. A great way to commemorate Passover and enjoy a quality time with our kids. :)

Posted on March 28, 2009 21:36

Elizabeth W. said:

I'm going to do this with friends, not as a Passover thing, but because my friend J. is obsessed with all things frog.

Posted on March 29, 2009 13:24

jodifur said:

I love this!

Posted on March 29, 2009 22:52

Lucia said:

Oh. My. God. This is unbelievably adorable. It makes me sad that I'm a shiksa. But, hey, I think maybe I'll do this project anyway - it's just too cute not to!

Posted on March 31, 2009 22:28

Boston Mamas said:

Adorable! I may need to make a plague of frogs even though I don't celebrate Passover! -Christine

Posted on April 2, 2009 20:33

Onna said:

What a great idea !!! A fun way to celebrate passover!!! Onna

Posted on April 2, 2009 23:14

rivky said:

Hi,
I love the frog idea. I thought you might be interested in my book, Crafting Jewish, it has great Passover crafts (including a great 10 plagues matching game), recipes and party ideas. You can find it on Amazon or at Barnes and Nobles. Have a wonderful Passover!

Posted on April 3, 2009 15:37

faemom said:

Those are so cute! That is a great craft to illustrate the plague of frogs.

Posted on April 3, 2009 21:31

Sandra said:

We made these today! They turned out so cute! Thanks for the idea and template.

Posted on April 8, 2009 15:38

Rivster said:

What a GREAT idea!!! I'm going to use this with the kids in our synagogue's playgroup next year.

Thanks!

Posted on September 7, 2009 14:59

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About this column

This is a year-round Holiday column. Kids love Holidays. As parents we have come to appreciate how Holidays seem to help structure our lives. Plus, any excuse to have fun sounds good to us!

We'll admit it, now that we're parents, we secretly look for Holidays to celebrate and between National, Secular, Unofficial and Bizarre Holidays, we think there are enough days out there to keep us inspired every week.

This column will be a place where you can get inspiration for how to enjoy time with your kids. Crafting projects and ideas will be posted on Thursdays by our brilliant contributors (see below). Other fun ideas will be posted here throughout the week as the inspiration hits us!

About our Craft Contributors

Ellen Baker Bio Ellen Luckett Baker is the author of the long thread, a blog about handmade goods. She has always enjoyed making things, but the flexibility of staying at home with her two daughters along with the creative inspiration they provide has led her to craft on a daily basis. Combining her love of graphic design and sewing, she has created an Etsy shop selling machine embroidery designs and sewing patterns.

Ellen lives in Atlanta with her husband and two young daughters. She holds a B.A. in Art History and a Master's of Public Administration with a focus in Non-Profit Management.

Cindy Hopper BioCindy Hopper was fortunate to be raised in a family who appreciated the arts. This background led to a Bachelor's Degree in Art Education. With a keen eye for design and color, Cindy has continued her love of art and is now passing her creative skills on to her three children. Cindy's family and friends are the beneficiaries of her passion for fun and meaningful creative projects. Cindy's personal blog, Skip to My Lou, has taken her love of a project to new levels. Postings keep the family busy -– from testing new recipes for holiday treats to designing and building floats for a neighborhood parade to making fabric rolls to hold crayons to creating themed parties. Cindy seems to have an unending supply of ideas for gifts, parties and rainy days.

Brenda Ponnay Bio Brenda Ponnay is a stealthy secret agent who juggles parenthood to her adorable daughter by day and freelance graphic design by night. Whether it's painting, baking, drawing, making castles out of card board boxes or just doing the laundry with flair, Brenda Ponnay has finally discovered (at the ripe old age of thirty-six) that what really makes her happy is being creative every single day.

Brenda lives in Southern California with her husband, daughter, three cats and thirty-seven pet birds. You can read about all her crazy adventures on her personal blog: Secret Agent Josephine.

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