Free Printable Frog Pond Pretend Play Set

Just print on card stock and laminate for durability. If you don’t have a laminator, clear contact paper is heavy duty and amazing. You can also opt to just print and play until those frogs wear out.

If you’re into saving that colored ink, print in black and white on colored construction paper.

It’s absolutely no secret that we love play dough in this house! It is the one thing that we play with almost every day.

I love incorporating play dough into the lessons we are learning in school or other things that we are talking about.

This week we’re learning about frogs and their habitat, so I decided to make a frog pond printable play dough set to share with you.

You can add a 3-D element to the set by cutting a slit in the lily pads and placing the very bottom of the frog through it. Fold over the bottom section of the frog and tape it to the lily pad.

Now you have a frog sitting on a green lily pad.

We also added short skewers to the backs of the flies and dragonflies to help them “fly.” It’s lots of fun to have the frogs hop to catch their food. You can make it educational by talking about food chains and webs. Or just keep it all fun!

We talked about the different elements of the frog’s habitat while placing the lily pads and cattails around the pond. The set includes both tadpoles and full-grown frogs, which lends itself nicely to a discussion about the frog life cycle.

I’d love to hear your ideas for other sets! Please let me know in the comments what playdough activities you would like to see for your little ones!

Benefits of Interactive Play

Hauling out the play dough can be cringe-worthy when we think about the mess it often creates (carpet + play dough = one giant headache). HOWEVER, the benefits of this type of interactive play and learning far outweigh those pesky little dropped pieces.

Get out the tarp or tablecloth as needed, or better yet take this project outside if possible. Then, roll up your sleeves for some amazing hands-on learning while playing with play dough.

Children gain dexterity and motor skills in playdough activities as they shape, flatten, roll, poke and who-knows-what-else with the play dough!

Conversations while creating develop language skills as well as the specialized vocabulary associated with the Frog Theme.

The preschool life cycle of a frog printable encourages creativity, problem solving, visual discrimination, fine motor development, and so much more!

The best part is that it’s wrapped up in a little package of…PLAY! Your young learner won’t see this as “School Work,” but an opportunity to have some fun.

Extension Activities

Play dough activities can also be used as a springboard for other learning within the same theme.

• Incorporate the theme into all areas of your lesson plans with guided reading using Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad are Friends” or other books from the same series
• Create a packet of “Frog and Toad are Friends” printable activities to work on throughout the unit
• Focus on reading comprehension by using the frog printables and play dough to retell the story
• Incorporate Science by delving further into frog eggs and egg masses, tadpole hatches, the life cycle of a frog, or the anatomy of a frog
• Print the pictures in black and white and encourage children to decorate the frogs and color the habitat any way they choose
• Include other opportunities to develop fine motor skills, like hiding frog eggs (small beads) in the play dough for children to find and extract with tweezers.