Leprechauns and Rainbows

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite days as a teacher, because I love to plan fun activities for my students, including having a leprechaun leave a mess and a pot of gold in the classroom. This year, I realized that Jack was old enough to do some fun things too, so I brought a lot of what I do at school home to do with Jack and Alice.

  St. Patrick's day never used to be anything more than a little splash of green added to our day. I don't know if my family just never did anything, or if today's parents have one-upped our moms and made it into a big deal. I have heard of some great things you can do with your kids regardless if you're Irish or not. I love starting fun and memorable traditions with my kids. That's what childhood is all about. 

So, here are a couple of things we did at home. 

 I read The Night Before St. Patrick's Day. This is such a cute little story (found it in my classroom library) about a brother and sister who make a trap and catch a leprechaun:

  

As soon as we finished reading it, Jack got straight to work making a trap in case a leprechaun came to our house.

He lured the leprechaun with a sign that says, "GOLD UP"

A shiny "gold" penny on top of kleenex, so he will fall into the can

We played outside for a while, and when Jack came in he found our window open with a trail of little gold rocks, 

 

and shiny gold coins in the can. The leprechaun escaped, but we got some of his gold!

Jack couldn't believe it. He was so excited, and he felt really proud that his trap had worked...sort of.

 Next year, maybe he'll catch him...I hear if you do catch a leprechaun, they turn to stone. 
(In other words, anyone who finds a cute stone leprechaun in the next 360 days, please let me know!)

To keep Alice interested, we also incorporated rainbows into our day over the last couple of weeks.

And here's a fun science project that they both enjoyed. We put a few drops of red, blue, and yellow food coloring into a shallow bowl of milk.  

Then, we put a drop of dish soap in the middle and watch the colors swirl together to make the rainbow.

They had so much fun watching this (and over-swirling the colors with their fingers until it turned gray), that they wanted to do it over and over again. So, instead of wasting all of my food coloring and milk, I gave them paint to mix and create art while they were at it.

Jack carefully mixed primary colors and took a long time to completely fill his paper with an "abstract," his favorite kind of art.

I know I'm slightly biased because I am Irish and I love color, but this has been a fun month. 

And, I have to say, while I usually wish that I could be a stay-at-home-mom,  how can you not love your job when you're given this?!

(They're twins and they made the rainbow and stuck it into a pot of chocolate gold coins. Isn't that so cute? I'm keeping it in my shamrock plant and keeping it in mind for Jack's teacher next year!)

HAVE A LUCKY DAY!!