Thursday, March 11, 2010

St. Patrick's Day Activities

Practical Life:
Transferring rainbow colored wooden beads. Always a favorite of James'. In addition to all things green, I'm also going with a rainbow theme in these activities. Which is fun for James AND me because we are both nutty for rainbows (as you'll soon find out in an upcoming post!). :)

Tonging green and white flowers. These flowers are from a lei I cut up and James is using a strawberry huller to transfer them from one basket to another.

Pouring rainbow colored rice. This is the same rice we made during our Letter R week. Susan, from All About the Journey, has an excellent tutorial on how to make some of your own!

Tonging rainbow puffs. I made these puffs out of yarn (totally brought back memories of my sister and I doing the same thing in 1984). I was excited to see that James was interested in using the tongs! I've always set them out as an option and he'd usually chose to transfer with his fingers, which was fine with me, but today it was all about the tongs. Yay!

Spooning green and gold beads. These beads were cut from two of those Mardi Gras type necklaces. The clever Gaby from Little Fingers, Big Dreams shared this idea.

Sensory:
Our St. Patty's Day playdough and sensory tub is a family favorite. Peas everywhere. Good fun.

Sorting rainbow colored shapes by largest and smallest. In the Montessori world, shapes are classified as a sensory item (not Math as one would think). James really enjoys these - he linked them all together to make a chain and then went down the line naming each shape "big triangle, little triangle, big square..."

Math:
Counting shamrocks. I found these at the dollar store a while back. James is sooo into numbers, and since he's quantified numbers with some success before, I'm sure this will be a big hit. If not, ah well - I know for sure he'll love the shamrocks! :)

Similar activity only in this case the shamrocks sets are different from one another. The lovely tray and numbers come from Karen, a sweet bloggy friend who took the postcard exchange to a whole 'notha level by generously sending James loads of goodies from Puerto Rico!

Language:

Sadly, our library had only 1 St. Patrick's day book to check out - The Story of St. Patrick's Day, by Patricia A Pingry. It was pretty good and it even taught me a few things I didn't know. There's a book for every holiday in this series.

Art:
A shamrock sun catcher. How pretty are these?! Especially when the sun shines through them! They're easy peasy to create, too!
::Simply tape a long sheet of contact paper onto a table,
::Peel back the protective covering only halfway,
::Cut up different colored tissue paper into small squares,
::Sprinkle the squares all over the contact paper,
::Peel back the other half of the protective covering on the contact paper and fold it over onto the tissue paper side and smooth over,
::Use this template to cut shamrock shapes out of the contact paper.
You could punch a hole in the top and hang them with string or take the easier route (as I did) and just double stick tape them to the window. Mind, use a teeny tiny amount of tape so as not to leave tons of adhesive residue on your windows!

Music:
We've been listening to Celtic Dreamland from the Putamayo Kids series. If you're not familiar with this collection of CDs, I highly recommend them - we've enjoyed all four of the CDs we own.

Misc.:
Sorting shells. James l-o-v-e-s shells and was excited to see them so colorful! I bought a HUGE bag of these at our local thrift store for 50 cents. I would guess you could dye shells yourself with a bit of food coloring.

Dropping green, purple and gold coins into a jar. I have to say, I felt like a tough chick when I pulled out the screwdriver and hammer to poke holes into the lid of a pickle jar. ;) James has been playing with this activity every day. It's got it all - counting (coins), sorting (by color), sensory (sound of the coins dropping), fine motor (dropping the coins in and screwing/unscrewing the lid). The coins were from the dollar store and the pretty little rainbow pouch is a knitted mama made creation (did I tell you that I am a knitting fiend these days?!).

A green muffin tin meal! SO many options for this, but here's what I came up with:
::Avocado
::Spinach quesadillas
::Broccoli and green pepper (notice how the pepper slice looks like a shamrock?!)
::Gold and green goldfish crackers
::A pickle
::Kiwi
::Green milk (milk with a drop of green food coloring)

Other ideas off the top of my head:
Spinach pasta
Green beans
Peas
Salad
Jello
Mint chip ice cream
Asparagus
Pea pods
Split pea soup
Green olives
Cucumber
Green apple
Pear
And anything to which you can add green food coloring!

These activities will keep us busy for the next week and then it's on to Easter!! Yay!!

A gentle reminder:
The Moon Dog Farm giveaway ends tomorrow (Friday) night at midnight, so get your names in quick! And PLEASE be sure to enable or include your email address in your entry - several of you haven't and without them I won't be able to enter you into the contest. Random.org, who generates the random drawing of the winners, requires an email address to enter. Thanks!!

Linking up to...










15 comments:

Gaby said...

These are all wonderful and cute ideas! I love the suncatcher shamrock and the green food tin. And of course I am honored that you used one of my silly ideas with yours, Thanks for the link ♥

Gaby

Unknown said...

You are so great! I love all your ideas, there are so many thrifty ideas! I have tons of mardi gras beads- what an excellent way to use them up!

Jenn @ Delicious Ambiguity said...

These are great! I’m starting a new MckLinky party called TOT TUESDAYS next week. I’d love it if you’d stop by & share your ideas. Here’s the information & my new buttons: http://delicious-ambiguity-nennyk.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-buttons-party.html Cheers, Jenn

Musical Mama said...

What fun activities! I tried to email you with my email address for the giveaway, outlook didn't work, I guess I'll just post it here - nicolerparker@hotmail.com THANKS!

Mommy Moment said...

What wonderful activities. Thanks for sharing. I did not enter my e-mail in your giveaway post and I can not edit it now, but if I win, which is unlikely...my e-mail address is mommymomentblog AT gmail DOT com

Anonymous said...

What wonderful St. Patrick's Day activities! Your sensory box looks like so much fun! I just want to dig my hands into it too!

Anonymous said...

Great stuff i love all the ideas and the books are great books too :)

Karen said...

Wow!!! my dear bloggy friend!! that's a COMPLETE THEME WORK!! you got everything!!! Lovely, I like it ALL!!! Thanks for your sweet comments, and for the link!!
Bigggg HUuggssss!!!
Karen

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I love your activities. I was looking in my Dollar Stores for some sort of St Patrick coins, but unfortunately they didn't have any. I guess I'll have to stick with real pennies. It must be interesting to see how the skills and interests change over time - like desire to use tongs for transfer activities.

Jen said...

You've done it again, what a great lot of activities. I will definitely try these with Aiden. Thank you!!

(V.Kerr) School Time Adventures said...

Wow-wee! I am so glad that Deborah from Teach Preschool is so good about introducing new blogs! I love how organized your whole posting is, with great pics. I just started my own blog this week and am feeling pretty overwhelmed at the idea of posting each day. But now I can just say, look friends at this great new blog I found, go check her stuff out! All your ideas are creative and simple! Thanks! Don't worry I will be coming back :)

Counting Coconuts said...

You guys are the best - thanks for your kind words!! Jenn, I'll be sure to link up. Thanks again!

Kate said...

What a great week, so many fun activities. Where did you get the rainbow colored shapes that he sorted by size?

Deb Chitwood said...

Great activities - as usual! I featured your St. Patrick's Day activities and photo at http://livingmontessorinow.com/2011/03/14/montessori-inspired-st-patricks-day-activities/

Unknown said...

Awesome Activities! I featured them on B.Inspired Mama today:

http://binspiredmama.blogspot.com/2011/03/link-love-7-fun-st-patricks-day.html

Thanks for the inspiration!

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