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Saint Patrick’s Day is a fun day at our house.  We usually stray from routine and do some themed learning and activities for the day.  I usually start off planning by popping over to a few of my favorite blogs that have lots of good book list resources.

www.growingbookbybook.com
www.notimeforflashcards.com/category/book-list
www.whatdowedoallday.com/books-for-kids
thisreadingmama.com/this-reading-mama-book-lists/
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Then I reserve several, okay tons, of the suggested books from our library.  These are some of my boys favorites that we've either bought or received as gifts.

​I found a couple new books this year that I'm hoping to get!  I might have a book hoarding problem...

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​​Then comes the activity planning!  Here are several of the activities we’ve done or will be doing this St. Patrick’s Day.

Pepper Paint Prints

Pepper paint prints were a hit at our house.  The boys thought it was so cool to paint with food.  It was fun to see them realize the shape the pepper made on the paper was a shamrock shape - just like we’d been reading about in our Saint Patrick’s Day books.  It was also a chance to sneak in some conversation about alliteration (pepper paint prints.)

Our Pepper Paint Print inspiration came from Shamrock Craft for Kids from Learn Play Imagine
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Rainbow Cake

On Pinterest I’ve seen tons of rainbow cakes, so we decided to try one out.  The boys decided they wanted cupcakes instead, so we modified.  They loved spooning the different colors into the cups.  Ours was fun, and fairly pretty, although nothing like those perfect pins!  ​

I did find a cool tutorial from Not Martha for making a leprechaun trap rainbow cake, so maybe we’ll have to try that this year.  ​
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Green Food

Most Saint Patty’s days around this house are not rainbow cake filled.  I try, but baking is not my favorite thing - and the 9,000 foot elevation we live at doesn’t help me enjoy it either! Most years, I opt for some easy prep, green lunch foods and easy prep shamrock shaped sandwiches.  Pretty sure my boys could live on pb&j (Little Brother) and ham and cheese (Big Brother.)   We've done lots of sandwiches in shamrock shapes.  Last year I attempted shamrock pancakes with a side of green cottage cheese (I know it looks disgusting in the pictures!) Grapes, kiwi, and avocado are always an easy, green side.
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Leprechaun Traps

Back in my classroom teacher days, I always had my students do a leprechaun trap project.  I structured it in different ways over the years, but the one thing that was consistent was the kids always had a blast with it!  This is something I have yet to do with my boys, but I think this might be the year!  I found a couple really cool links with great photos that I’m going to show my boys to give them some ideas and inspiration for trapping that leprechaun.

Leprechaun traps from How Does She      &    Leprechaun traps from Little Bins for Little Hands

Cereal Fun

Sugar cereal doesn’t happen too often around our house, so incorporating it into a fun activity is a real treat on holidays.  One activity that my kids have really enjoyed is Fruit Loop rainbow making.

Rainbow template from The Bubbly Blonde Teacher

Another sugar ceral activity is a Lucky Charms graph.  Finally In First has a picture of the actual graph we use.  It’s from a cereal graphing book, so for copyright reasons, I’m not posting the blank copy of it.   (Finally In First has lots of other fun ideas too!)  

Classroom Freebies Too has a similar free version.  ​​

Fizzy Science

Fizzy science is always a hit!  I mean, what’s not to like about science you can see fizzing and bubbling!  A simple chemical reaction, with tons of fun!

Our recipe and idea to use green dye came from Green Fizzy Fun from I Can Teach My Child ​

Rainbow Writing

To tie in rainbows and writing, we did a version of rainbow letter writing from Motherhood On a Dime.  I used a shallow plastic bin and taped down all the rainbow colors using construction paper and filled it with salt before handing it over to the boys.  Little Boy practiced writing his letters, name, and some other words he was interested in learning.  Big Boy did his spelling words with the rainbow writing.  We are going to learn more about rainbows and light in the upcoming weeks.  

Hundreds Chart Activity

This 100's chart activity from I Can Teach My Child is an activity I just found this year and looks like something my boys will both enjoy.  We’ll be trying it out in a couple days!  Have I mentioned that I LOVE.LOVE.LOVE I Can Teach My Child?  Such a great blog with so many terrific, fun learning activities!​
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St. Patrick's Day Writing 

We have done several fun writing prompts in the past, but I found this fun list of writing prompts from Fun Games 4 Learning I think we’ll choose from this year.  Sometimes Big Boy wants to be independent and do his own writing, sometimes he wants to do shared writing, and sometimes he wants me to scribe the whole piece for him.  I like to do a mix of these.  He has so many great ideas, but if I make him do the physical act of writing for very long, he shuts down and his writing becomes boring and short.  We’re working on building up his stamina and learning to type so he has another option for getting his ideas on paper.  If we do shared writing (I write a sentence, he writes a sentence) or if I scribe (meaning I write down exactly what he says including punctuation and capitals) his work is so much more interesting and vivid!  Little Boy doesn’t have an interest in writing much besides letters and a few words on his own yet.  But he loves to have me scribe his stories for him.  I add in capitals and punctuation for him, mentioning it as it fits into our storytelling conversation. 

For more ideas and inspiration you can check out my St. Patty’s Day board on Pinterest.  
https://www.pinterest.com/amandab3131/st-patty-s-day/

Don't get me wrong, we might take a day or two off from our routine to play in the snow, build a snowman, drink some hot chocolate, and snuggle by our wood stove reading stories. 

BUT...

Seriously. "Sun" days off after a long winter.  Yes, please.  Homeschool for the win.