Leap to it! Leap Day is here, and we've got fun ways to celebrate Leap Day with your kids—leapin' foods, parties, books, and games. Be sure you make the most of it—February 29th won't be back again until 2016!
Fun Ways for Younger Kids to Celebrate Leap Day
Have a Leaping Contest
Kids can practice leaping, jumping, and hopping. Give out prizes for the farthest, highest, and silliest leaps and jumps.
Bake Leap Day Treats
Make frog pancakes (shown in photo by Anna Sandler), frog cupcakes, frog cookies, or if you're feeling super ambitious, bake a frog cake.
Discover Math Fun with the Number Four
Have kids count by fours, multiply by fours, and arrange objects in groups of fours. Kids can also figure out which shapes have four sides, and how shapes can be divided into fourths.
Read a Leap Day Book
Share a book about Leap Day with your kids: Mommy, Where's My Birthday? and Leap's Day are both about Leap Day babies whose birthdays only come around ever four years.
Throw a Leap Day Party
Young kids don't need much to make a play date into a party. Buy plastic jumping frogs for favors, decorate cupcakes or other baked goods with gummy frogs, and have the kids make a frog craft (here's how to make a frog puppet out of a paper lunch bag). For a scavenger hunt, hide frog stickers or other tiny frogs around the house. And, of course, you can always play a game of leap frog!
Fun Way for Older Kids to Celebrate Leap Day
Think About Extra Days
Talk to your kids about what they would like to do with an extra or "free" day, and then have them write or draw what they would do on a day they could spend any way they wanted.
Imagine the Future
What do your children imagine they will be doing in four years? What will be the same and what will be different? Let them write down their predictions a sheet of paper, and then seal them up in an envelope. On the next Leap Day—in 2016—bring out the predictions and have your family take turns reading them around the dinner table.
Deliver Leap Day Frogs
Buy some inexpensive plastic or plush frogs, attach a "Hoppy Leap Day!" tag and let your children leave them outside the front door of your neighbors' homes as a happy Leap Day surprise.
Share the Science Behind Leap Day
Explain why our calendar needs an extra day every four years. Here's some background on the science, and some fun trivia, from Home School Coach.
Read a Leap Day Book
It's My Birthday . . . Finally! A Leap Year Story is for ages 8-12.
Make a Frog Craft
Free Kids Crafts shares directions on how to make an origami frog with googly eyes.
Put on a Play
The Pirates of Penzance is the perfect Leap Day production (read why!).
For more Leap Day ideas, check out our Leap Year Leap Day Pinterest Board and there are also lots of upcoming events all at Leap Day Play.
However you celebrate, Happy Leap Day! And, be sure to let us know what activities, games, crafts, or food projects you made for Leap Day.