St. Patrick's Day

Well, it has been a while since I have updated here. Being pregnant with twins, complete hospital bedrest, and caring for and nursing two babies puts a damper on the blogging. :)

Sorry this is posted so close to St. Paddy's Day, but I did want to share a few festivities that the kids and I have had fun with in years past.

I have had hosted two different St. Patrick's Day Parties as a preschool teacher. The students favorite activity, and my own children's as well is this:
(idea found here: Perpetual Preschool)
The End of the Rainbow: We go searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! I run a very long length of ribbon throughout our playground. It weaves around trees, under large toys, around corners, etc. Actually, it is several long pieces of ribbon tied end to end...first red, then orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and gold . The kids follow the rainbow path to find treasure -- a leprechaun's pot of gold coins, small toys, stickers, gold rocks, or whatever you want to hide!

My daughter actually reminded me of this activity a few months ago. She is very excited for St. Patrick's Day this year, so we can do it again.

Here are some photos from this year's festivities!




For snack we usually do this (idea found here: Preschool Education )
Magic Powder On St. Patrick's Day, pour three boxes of instant Pistachio pudding mix into a plastic airtight container. Label the container "Magic Powder." Leave the container in an obvious place with directions from the leprechaun for making pudding.
Note:
Dear children:
*Open the lid and take a whiff of my magic powder, What does it smell like to you?
*Add 6 Cups of cold milk. I left some in the fridge!
*Put the lid on tight.
*Take turns shaking the bowl while the whole class says:
Leprechauns, Leprechauns
Shamrocks seen
Magic powder
Green, green, green!

The kids love shaking it up and watching it turn green. Some kids try it, some don't. The ones that try it usually like it. ;)

For an art craft for 3-4 yr olds (though my six year old quite enjoyed it too) we did this:
(idea found here: Hummingbird Ed)

Depending on the age/skill of children, you can precut circles, or have the children cut the circles themselves. You want circles in the following sizes and colors. I did not do those exact sizes,
I just made sure to graduate the sizes, with red being the largest.
CIRCLES
Red-12"
Orange-10"
Yellow-8"
Green-6"
Blue-4"
Violet-2"
Have the children glue the orange circle onto the red circle, the yellow onto the orange, etc. Before the glue (which will be thick in some areas) dries, fold in half-colors out- any way the colors look best or however the child chooses. We punched a hole in top and hung them from the ceiling in the room. We added a little gold glitter glue to ours as well.

Here is my son's hanging, and my daughter's with glitter (the boy didn't want glitter lol)




In the past we have also painted our own blarney stone. I found some rocks and painted them green ahead of time, so
they would be dry. The kids added all kinds of green
embellishments, glitter, pipe cleaners, foam stickers, etc. We
also added eyes to them. The kids had fun, and they turned
out adorable. Unfortunately that was 4 years ago and I was not
the photo nut I am now.

Another fun art project we did was torn paper shamrocks (idea found here: Free Kid Crafts)
What You'll Need: Green construction paper, Large sheet of contrasting paper, Pencil, Glue. What to Do: Tear green construction paper into small pieces. Half inch squares work pretty well, but you can go a little bigger if you're working with a very young child. Draw a large shamrock shape in the middle of the sheet of contrasting paper. Spread glue around the inside of the design. Try to cover the entire surface of the shamrock so that covering it will be easier. Put the torn green paper on the glue to create the shamrock design. Let the glue dry completely.

We also danced an Irish jig. The best music I had available was from the dancing scene in Titanic, but the kids loved it.

And the best St. Paddy's movie to watch, is of course,

I love any excuse to make a cute craft with the kids, and these are the ones I think worked best. What things do you like to do for St. Patrick's Day?

Comments

  1. Oh these are all fun ideas- I can't wait to try the pudding idea tomorrow- Thanks!!! :o)

    ReplyDelete

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