Here’s repost from St. Patrick’s Day 2012!
Today we hosted a St. Patrick’s Day party for the wee little lads. It was a very simple gathering just to introduce the children to the holiday. Other cities put on much larger affairs, but Miami barely notices the Irish holiday, so we had to make the effort. Here’s what we did:
Decorations
A few shamrocks posing as weeds in our yard, a couple of paper cut-outs and a pipe cleaner rainbow for our leprechaun gnome set the mood.
Liquid Rainbow
A few months ago Martha Stewart had a guest show how to make a density column out of household materials. I saved the idea for St. Patrick’s Day. It was exciting to watch each layer hold steady. Later in the day we dropped objects to see which density would catch each item.
Search for a Pot of Gold
I told the wee ones I had caught a leprechaun and got his pot of gold. He told me there were more pots in the back yard, so the wee ones had to go find them. Each little pot had gold coins and shamrock stickers.
Color Matching
I cut shamrock shapes out of paint samples for a color matching activity. This is a Montessori-inspired activity to teach the various shades of green and fine tune perceptions of subtle differences.
Story Time
We raided our bookcase and the library’s for a few fun St. Patrick’s Day stories.
Arts and Crafts
I printed a few coloring sheets from the Internet and broke out the crayons, including the rainbow crayons from earlier this week. We also glued three hearts to make shamrocks.
Snack Time
What more do you need than shamrock cookies flecked with gold sprinkles and green milk. I pretended not to have any green coloring, so I used yellow and then blue to make green.
Irish Music and a Jig
We sang a cute St. Patrick’s Day song to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb.
I’M A LITTLE LEPRECHAUN
I’m a little leprechaun,
Leprechaun, leprechaun.
I’m a little leprechaun
On St. Patrick’s Day.
See me dance a little jig,
Little jig, little jig.
See me dance a little jig
When I come out to play.
Elizabeth Scofield
Unfortunately, our guests had to leave for a nap before we got around to our Irish jig which was super fun and tuckered us out.
None of these ideas cost much money and were very simple to prepare. I hope you steal a few for your own celebrations.
May the luck of the Irish be with you!
Love,
Rebecca
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