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February 29 comes but once every four years. Take advantage of this extra day by planning a special activity or two to make your kids aware of this special date.
Make a leap-year frog! Known for leaping themselves, this adorable frog is a great craft that you can make with your students. It is found on family crafts.
Read The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County written by Mark Twain and found by clicking here. Then, make these adorable oragami frogs and have a jumping contest of your won.
You can also make an origami frog that is simple and colorful. Click here to copy one for each student.
Visited Enchanted Learning and make a frog puppet. Have the kids write their own skits about leap year-or frogs!
Do this simple science experiment. Pair students with a partner. Mark off a starting line. One child from each group stands on the line and leaps as far as it is possible. The partner marks the spot. Then the child takes a running leap and sees how much farther he or she can leap. Try it a third time from a greater distance from the line. Trade places. Have eah student graph his or her own results. Discuss why they were able to leap farther each time.
Scholastic has a few great ideas for a celebration. Check here for their ideas. Sadly, the singing frogs link no longer works.
Try a Leaping Pepper experiment. Cove the bottom of a small, clear, plastic box with black pepper. Rub the lid of the box (on the inside) with a wool sock. Put the lid on the box and watch the pepper leap to the top of the box.
If you have a leap-year "baby" in your class, celebrate their day. If not (or even if) read them the book-It's My Birthday Finally! A Leap Year Story TeachersPayTeachers has a free (as of the writing of this article) download with an activity for Leap Day. Click here to download it.
This link will lead you to a site called Bunting, Books & Bright Ideas. She has a link to a free flip book about Leap Year. When you click here you should know that you have to sign up before you can download, but it might be worth it to you!
There are a lot of ideas on the Internet. I hope this list helps you leap into fun this year on Monday, February 29!
