Thursday, March 15, 2012

Homeschool Theme of the Week: St. Patrick's Day!


Happy early St. Patrick's Day!  Here are a few fun activities from our week so far...


A lucky snack!  The pot in the middle is full of yellow jello - GOLD - surrounded by a rainbow of fruit (think pot of gold at the end of the rainbow).  The muffin cups are filled with "clouds" of greek yogurt and shredded coconut.  No, Miss A did not eat all of this herself - this was a huge snack for sharing with little brother and Mommy.  


Hide the Leprechaun Activity:  print a picture of a leprechaun, buy some stickers or use some shamrock cut outs, roll two dice, add the numbers together and add that many stickers to the leprechaun.  The goal is to help the leprechaun by eventually "hiding" him under the shamrock stickers.  For younger kids, just roll one die and add that many stickers to "hide" the leprechaun - for older kids, use two dice and multiply, etc.


We've been practicing the numbers 1-100 in school this year so I wrote some of these numbers on slips of paper.  I purchased some pretend gold coins and piled them on the table.  Miss A and I pretended to be leprechauns and the goal was to see who was the luckiest leprechaun.  

We each took turns drawing a number - the one with the largest number won a gold coin.  At the end of the game, we compared our gold stashes and the one with the most was the luckiest leprechaun!  But the fun didn't end there.  The luckiest leprechaun then had to jump up and do a little leprechaun dance!  :)


This activity was based on a short story I wrote for Miss A titled:  Magical Shamrocks!  The basic idea of the story was that Miss A overheard two leprechauns talking about magical shamrocks.  When gold was placed inside the leaves of a magical shamrock and the shamrock was closed, one would find the gold had doubled when the shamrock was opened back up.

After we read the short story, my daughter took some yellow paint and a cotton swab and put dots of yellow inside one half of each of the paper shamrocks I had given her.  We then closed each "magical" shamrock briefly and when we opened each one again - we found that the "gold" had indeed doubled!  Then she wrote number sentences corresponding to each magical shamrock.  

NOTE:  You may want to put a limit on how many "gold coins" your younger child can add to the shamrock if you are wanting him/her to be able to count the final results well or make simple number sentences, etc.


I had seen this idea on Pinterest before - a writing activity asking children what they would do if they found a pot of gold.  I just added a leprechaun to the mix because chances are that is how you would find said pot of gold on St. Patrick's Day, right?  :)


This was a rhyming rainbow Miss A made.  I had seen the idea before using math facts, and thought this twist would be fun too!  

I wrote some words on a large sheet of white paper in rainbow band arcs.  Then I wrote a word that rhymed with each on pieces of colored paper.  Miss A had to match the words up and glue the colored word on top of the word it rhymed with.  Thus - a rhyming rainbow!


More fun with shamrocks!  Miss A would pick a shamrock, turn it over, and then had to come up with a number sentence that would equal the number on the shamrock.  THEN, if the shamrock happened to be a glittery one (she loved those the best), she had to write the number word next to the number sentence as well.


Of course we have had some visits from our house leprechaun, doling out plenty of green mischief this week!  We've been victims of the traditional turn-the-milk-green caper and the not-so-traditional trick of putting green grapes in the bottoms of socks and leaving stickers (very lightly so they could be easily shaken off) stuck to our dog!  

My daughter has been thinking of a way to trap the little fellow so stay tuned - come Saturday morning, we hope to be the proud recipients of a pot of gold!  :)

And should you need to leave a few books out for your own little house leprechauns to read (might keep them from mischief if they have a good book in hand to distract), here are a few that graced our shelves this week:


Linking up to:
www.whipperberry.com
www.kitchenfunwithmy3sons.blogspot.com
www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com
www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com
www.tatertotsandjello.com
http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/
www.threesinginglittlebirds.blogspot.com
www.delicateconstruction.com
www.diyhshp.blogspot.com
www.hiphomeschoolmoms.com
www.tipjunkie.com
www.gingersnapcrafts.com
www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com
www.enchantedhomeschoolingmom.blogspot.com
www.bearrabbitbear.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.handsonaswegrow.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
For the Kids Friday

17 comments:

  1. What wonderful ideas! I love your leprechaun game!

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  2. The Hide the Leprechan game is very creative! Great way to add in some math! We did the Addition Rainbow activity, but I like your rhyming activity! Great reading practice!

    Thanks for sharing!

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  3. I love the rainbow rhyme! Very creative! I am thinking I may use it with upper case and lower case letter matching for my 4 yr old. Thanks for sharing!

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  4. That snack is so, so cute, nutritious, and pretty! Love all your St. Patrick's Day ideas!!!

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  5. I love that lucky snack! Very creative!

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  6. I love your creative St. Patrick's Day theme! I pinned your post to the St. Patrick's Day Pinterest board at http://pinterest.com/momto2poshdivas/st-patrick-s-day/. I'm your newest follower from HHH. Deb @ LivingMontessoriNow.com

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  7. What lovely ideas! I especially like the lucky snack, gorgeous and healthy! Thanks so much for visiting my blog and for commenting on my spring wreath. got me to visit you. i love your creative ideas for home schooling and am following you now. it would be wonderful if you would like to follow back, but no hard feelings if not :-)
    love
    jutta

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  8. So many cute ideas!! Love your rainbow rhyme, snack, and hide the leprechaun (cute stickers!!). Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Have a great week & I'll see you Friday =-)
    Beth

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  9. The meal looks great! I love how you built it.

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  10. Awesomeness! You have sent some inspiration for our St. Patty's Day next year!

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  11. Wow! This looks like such a fun themed week. I love your snack and all the great activities.

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  12. super cute and fun looking week!! thanks for sharing!!

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  13. Great ideas! I would love for you to link up at my Linky Party via: http://ourdelightfulhome.blogspot.com/2012/03/show-me-what-you-got-linky-party-6.html



    Mrs. Delightful
    www.ourdelightfulhome.blogspot.com

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  14. I love the shamrock number sentences! What great ideas. I have pinned some of these ideas for next year. Thank you for linking up this week to my Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop!

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  15. Too. Much. Fun. Thanks so much for sharing at Mom On Timeout!

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