Grow a Frog: The Aquatic Frog that Comes in the Mail

If you browse through a learning store, you might find a variety of boxes that promise to teach kids about exotic pets and how to care for them. Among the shelf of sea monkeys, ant farms and cocooned butterflies sits a box called "Grow A Frog". The box promises that if you mail in a coupon, you will receive a frog in the mail. In the box, you receive the coupon, a small plastic box, a bit of blue sand, some powder labeled "food", and a small plastic plant. So you put it all together and send in your coupon. Then what?

First, in preparation for the arrival of your tadpole, buy some spring or distilled water. Tap water will not suffice.
In the mail comes a small Styrofoam package labeled "Live Tadpole". Make sure it gets delivered to an office or a neighbor who is home every day- though the company only ships in appropriate temperatures, you still don't want to leave the tadpole in a sunny metal mailbox. The tadpole will be quite shaken up, since it just spent the last couple days in the back of mail trucks.

Add spring water to your little box, some powdered food, and gently slide the tadpole in. It will calm down probably in a day or so. Don't try to hold the fragile tadpole, and any contact you have with the tadpole or the water should result in the washing of your hands.

Food should be distributed once a day, preferably at a consistent time of day (i.e. always at noon or within an hour of dinner). If the water gets overly cloudy, try cutting back on how much is given. Fresh water should be cycled in at least once a week, but for tadpoles, who get nutrients from the powder in the water, all of the water should never be switched out unless food is provided right away.

In about a month, the tadpole will start sprouting legs. They will be little stumps at first, but slowly and steadily little legs will come out. The tail will grow smaller as the legs grow bigger. When the tadpole starts sprouting legs, it is time to start looking for a bigger container.