Frog Coloring Pages

There are more than seven thousand kinds of frog, and they do not all sit on lily pads. These frog coloring pages start with the real ones, from the rainforest canopy to the bottom of a garden, then follow a frog from the egg to the grown-up, and end in the storybook, where frogs have picnics and ride bicycles.

The rainforest frogs come first. A tree frog grips a smooth stem with the round pads of its toes, a red-eyed tree frog spreads its fingers on a bromeliad leaf in the rain, a poison dart frog stands on a wet rock in its bold patches, a glass frog clings under a leaf so its see-through belly shows, and a wide horned frog waits half hidden in the leaf litter. Closer to home, a bullfrog sits square on a mud bank, a warty toad shelters under a tipped flower pot, a frog climbs a lit window at night, and another hides in a watering can in a greenhouse or perches on a dripping garden tap.

The pond pages follow the year: a clump of frog spawn among the reeds, a shoal of tadpoles over the pebbles, a tadpole that has grown its legs, a froglet climbing out onto a stone, and a cutaway of the pond with the frog above and the tadpoles below. A frog leaps between lily pads, a row of bullfrogs puffs out their throats on a branch, a frog meets a dragonfly nose to nose on a reed. Then the stories: a frog prince in his crown on the rim of a stone well, a frog in a rain hat and boots, one in a teacup, two sharing a picnic with acorn cups, a band playing on a log among fireflies, a frog asleep in a leaf hammock under a blanket of moss, and a frog on a bicycle with a basket of lily pads. For the patient there is a frog mandala and a frog whose back is divided into panels of pattern.

Frog or toad?

Children will ask, and there is a page for each side of the answer. A toad has dry, bumpy skin and short legs, and it walks or makes small hops; it can live far from water and only goes back to lay its eggs. A frog has smooth, damp skin and long back legs made for jumping, and it rarely strays from the pond. Put the warty toad under its flower pot beside the frog leaping between lily pads and the difference is right there on paper: count the bumps on one, measure the legs on the other.

The spawn tells them apart too. Frogs lay their eggs in a floating clump, like the one among the reeds on this page. Toads lay theirs in long strings wound around the pond weeds, two rows of black dots in a ribbon of jelly.

What color is a frog, really?

Not always green. Most garden frogs are olive, brown or a muddy yellow, with darker blotches that help them vanish in the mud, and a toad is usually the color of dry earth. Green is a fine choice, but a child who reaches for brown is being accurate.

The rainforest frogs are where the bright crayons go, and each one has a reason for its colors:

• The red-eyed tree frog is leaf green with blue and yellow stripes down its sides, orange feet and, of course, red eyes. It sleeps with its eyes shut to stay hidden, then flashes them open when disturbed, and the sudden red can startle a snake long enough to escape.
• The poison dart frog wears a warning. Its patches can be yellow, blue, orange or red on black, and the brighter the frog, the more a bird learns to leave it alone. Pick two strong colors and keep them apart with the black.
• The glass frog is lime green on top and nearly clear underneath. Color the leaf first, then go over the frog's belly with a pale green so the veins still show through: that is exactly what the real one looks like from below.
• The horned frog is camouflage in green and brown, patterned like the dead leaves it sits in. Give it the same browns as the leaves and it disappears, which is the point.

For a frog that looks wet, leave a small patch of white paper on each eye and a thin streak along the back. That bit of shine is the difference between a damp frog and a painted one.

Which pages suit which child

The collection spreads evenly from easy to demanding, so there is a frog for every age. A preschooler needs one animal, thick outlines and open water around it. Quick to color, above the grid, gathers those, beginning with:

• Tadpole with new legs on a lily pad
• Frog leaping between lily pads
• Three frogs stacked on stones

A school-age child can take on the pond scenes, the bullfrogs on their branch or the frog under the mushroom in the rain. And for a teenager or an adult, the patterned frog, the mandala and the frog prince on his ivy-covered well are pages to spend an evening on. Lots of detail starts with the densest:

• Frog mandala
• Frog prince on a stone well
• Patterned frog

Put the life cycle in order

The pond pages make a science lesson that needs no worksheet. Print the frog spawn, the shoal of tadpoles, the tadpole with legs, the froglet on its stone and the frog portrait, color them, then shuffle them and ask a child to lay them out in order. The back legs come first and the front legs after, and the tail shrinks as the froglet leaves the water, so the order can be checked by looking closely rather than guessing. The wreath page shows the whole cycle in a ring and makes a good answer sheet to pin up afterward.

The cutaway of the pond works the same way for older children: label what lives above the water line and what lives below, and why the tadpoles need the weed.

Frogs for a storybook corner

The frog prince, the frog in a teacup, the picnic on a lily pad and the band on the log belong to the tradition of old children's books, where animals wear hats and keep house. They make good prompts for a short story: color the frog on the bicycle, then write where it is going with that basket of lily pads. Pinned in a row, the storybook frogs make a small gallery for a reading corner.

Printing a pond's worth

Each page is a free PDF drawn for A4 at 300 dpi; on A4 print at actual size, and on US Letter pick "fit to page", which trims the drawing by roughly six percent. The printing guide walks through the dialog box. Tap Add to pack under the pages you want and they print together as one file. More pond and garden life lives in the turtle coloring pages, the duck coloring pages and the butterfly coloring pages.