I'm super into ancestry. I have all of my grandparent's grandparent's pictures and all the family history. It's so fun to see where you come from! One country that pops up over and over is Ireland. I've always wanted to go there, so having that family history makes St. Patrick's Day a really fun holiday to celebrate.
St. Patrick's Day always makes me think of rainbows. One of the neatest things we did was to make rainbow flowers. We added food coloring into several clear cups, and then put white daisies into each cup. I had done this when I was little with carnations but they didn't have any so I wasn't sure this would work as well. But within a few hours some were already starting to turn! That must have been our thirsty flower, because it took a while for the others to show. Next time we will use carnations or roses since people have had good luck with those. This was fun for my preschoolers, but could also be used with older kids for a great plant unit activity.
We definitely get a lot of use out of our food colors! Since my youngest is still learning his colors, we have been focusing on green for the past few days. I sometimes have to make bath time seem super fun. One of their favorite ways to do this is to color the water. We like to experiment, so we mixed yellow and blue this time and added some bubbles. They had so much fun mixing it together to make the green! This could also be done in a sensory bin for non-bathtime play. You can also make it more fun and hands-on by going on a hunt for green things to add. We had more than enough green toys already in our bath bucket though...
Something I've always wanted to try was to make recycled crayons. We found a really fun St. Patrick's Day silicone mold and used our old broken crayons to make some great new seasonal crayons. It was really easy and the kids loved turning something old into something totally new!
Something I've always wanted to try was to make recycled crayons. We found a really fun St. Patrick's Day silicone mold and used our old broken crayons to make some great new seasonal crayons. It was really easy and the kids loved turning something old into something totally new!
Art is obviously big in our house, so any crafts we can do are always a hit. We made a Froot Loop rainbow activity that the kids colored and glued. It was also great fine motor practice! (And doubled as snack time... Always a plus!)
Our sensory bin was another great activity. We try to create one for each holiday or theme, and incorporate whatever skills we are working on. We used cute glittery shamrocks and plastic coins to practice counting for this one. You can find the shamrock number cards here. (They also include letters!)
Who can make it through St. Patrick's Day without playing with Lucky Charms?
I couldn't find any math manipulatives small enough to use with our ten frames, but these turned out to be perfect! You could also use Lucky Charms to sort into the different marshmallows.
And last but possibly my favorite, we made these fun and colorful rainbow cupcakes to celebrate. We divided up the batter into several bowls, added food coloring to each, then layered them into the liners. After they were cool we added white icing "clouds" and rainbow sprinkles! Cooking with kids is always so much fun and provides so many learning opportunities. We always talk about measurements and fractions (even if they don't fully understand them yet, it never hurts to be exposed!), I let them smell or taste the ingredients, and they love to mix things up - in more ways than one! It also teaches me patience...
What is your favorite activity for St. Patrick's Day?
