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| St. Patrick's DAZE |
| St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland and the Irish, was born about 385 A.D. in Northern Wales. He studied religion in Europe to become a priest and bishop. He then brought Christianity to the Irish by teaching in Ireland for 29 years. According to early Irish tradition, he died on March 17, 461 AD. The anniversary of his death is celebrated as Saint Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is most known around the world as driving all the snakes out of Ireland through trickery.
The symbol of shamrocks: An Irish tale tells of how Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity. He used it in his sermons to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day. Green is associated with Saint Patrick's Day because it is the color of spring, Ireland, and the shamrock. Today St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17 by the Irish as well as many Canadians with parades, parties, wearing of green, Irish songs and jigs. Art: Sparkle Shamrocks Materials: cereal box cardboard , pinto beans , green paint , paint brushes , scissors , glue, glitter Directions: Cut a large shamrock shape out of your cardboard . Glue the pinto beans onto the shamrock . Let dry overnight . Paint Green & sprinkle with glitter Fruit Loop Rainbow What You Need: Paint , Poster Board , Glue , Fruit Loops What You Do: Use a large piece of poster board. Add food coloring or paint to the glue to match the colors of the Fruit Loops cereal. Paint a rainbow on the paper with the glue. Have the children sort and match the fruit loops and stick them to the corresponding colors on the rainbow. Lucky Mobiles Materials:1 paper plate, Paper streamers or wide ribbon in rainbow colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple)OR craft paint in rainbow colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple) , Scissors , White craft glue , Piece of ribbon for hanging , Shamrock garland OR cut your own shamrocks from green construction paper Rainbow Mobile - Cut the paper plate in half. Cut a 40-inch length of streamer in each color. Cut each length up the middle to create two long strips of each color. Reserve one set of rainbow color strips for another project or for a second Rainbow Mobile. Use one strip of each color. Glue the red streamer strip around the top curve of the paper plate. Make sure to center the streamer so you have equal lengths hanging off each side. Repeat with each color, moving your way down from red to orange, then yellow, green, blue and lastly purple. Add one more thin purple strip to the back of the plate to fill the gap in the center. Tie a piece of ribbon into a knot, then glue to the back of the plate to use as a hanger. Shamrock Mobile - Cut the paper plate in half. Paint it with craft paint in this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Use our photo as a guide. Let dry completely and paint the other side as well. Cut shamrock garland into 18" strips. Glue each strip to the back of the paper plate. If you like, instead of store-bought garland, make your own shamrocks from construction paper and glue to lengths of string or yarn. Tie a piece of ribbon into a knot, then glue to the back of the plate to use as a hanger. Shamrock Cut a shamrock from construction paper. Glue pieces of green variegated tissue paper or scraps of green paper on shamrock. Variations: Decorate with crayons, felt-tipped pens, or paint. Cover shamrock with glue. Sprinkle with green glitter then remove excess. Hearty Shamrock Cut three hearts from green construction paper. Form shamrock by gluing points of hearts together on a piece of paper. Draw stem. Shamrock Prints Cut green bell peppers in half, clean out the seeds, dip the cut side into some paint, and press onto a piece of paper. Voila, shamrock prints. Magic Leprechaun glasses green tagboard cut into shamrock shaped sunglasses with green cellophane covering the eye openings Shamrock Tissue Paper Art Need: Shamrock pattern traced on construction paper (1 per child) , green tissue paper , glue Give each child his or her own paper with shamrock (or any seasonal pattern) traced on it to fill the page. Put glue inside pattern and let children spread it out with their fingers. Wipe off children's hands with a wet wipe. Have green tissue paper cut into small squares (1" X 1" is a good size) and placed in a bowl or dish. Let the children crumple up the tissue and place the squares inside the pattern. After the glue has dried, the pattern can be cut out, and hung on the walls or from the ceiling for wonderful seasonal decorations. (Hint: It creates a neat effect if two or more shades of tissue paper are used and overlaped.) Leprechaun binoculars 2 tp rolls stapled together and painted green. We will look for Leprechauns all day. Filter Paper Shamrocks Precut shamrock shape out of coffee filters. Mix water and yellow food coloring and place mixture in a baby food jar. Do the same for blue. Let the children use eyedroppers to drip colors on the filter shape. The colors will run together and make beautiful shamrocks. SHAMROCK FINGER PUPPETS For super-easy finger puppets, let your children draw faces on shamrock stickers with ballpoint pens. Then help them attach their stickers to a fingertip. Encourage the children to have their shamrock puppets "talk" to one another. Shamrock Prints Cut bell pepper in half and clean out the seeds. The children can dip the cross sections of the pepper into some green paint and press the shamrock print onto paper. Shamrock People Materials: construction paper scissors Instructions: Cut large shamrock shape our of green paper. Fold white paper accordian style for arms and legs. Cut small shamrocks for hands and feet. Glue at ends of accordian arms and legs. Decorate large shamrock as a face. Shamrock Wands Materials: green construction paper scissors gluestapler gold glitter green straw thin ribbon in both green and gold Instructions: 1. Cut three heart shapes from the green paper. Glue the tips of the three shapes together to form a shamrock. 2. Staple the center of the shamrock to the end of the straw to make a handle 3. Decorate the shamrock with gold glitter 4. Cut three or more 3 foot ribbons. Hold the ribbons together and staple them to the back of the shamrock at the center so that the ends hang down from the shamrock wand. 5 Cut several tiny shamrocks and staple them along the ribbons. Maybe your magic wand will help you catch a leprechaun! Drama: Tall and Small Here is a giant who is tall, tall, tall. Here is an elf who is small, small, small. The elf who is small will try, try, try. To reach the giant who is high, high, high. Act out the movements as you sing. Stand tall, slowly sink to the floor, slowly rise, stand tall, stretch and reach arms high. Cut out 10 potato shapes out of brown paper and number them 1-10. Place them on the floor in a row and have the kids jump from one to ten singing One potato, two potato, three potato four...etc. Fine Motor Games: Lucky Leprechaun Says How To Play: Played similar to Simon Says. The player up is "Lucky Leprechaun". Player will say "Lucky Leprechaun says hop on one foot". The children will hop on one foot. Player will say "Stop". The children are to keep hopping on one foot until player says "Lucky Leprechaun says stop". Repeat for additional activities such as take one baby step forward, step backwards, turn around, sit down. Sometimes Lucky Leprechaun will say "Lucky Leprechaun says" and sometimes he won't. It's a fun game to play with young children. SILENT SHAMROCK GAME Invite your children to sit in a circle and show them a glittery shamrock shape. Have them close their eyes while you display the shape where it can be easily seen. When the children open their eyes, let them walk around searching for the shamrock. When they spot it, have them silently come back to the circle. Let the first child to return explain where the shamrock is and then display it for the next round of the game Treasure Hunting A leprechaun "lost" all his gold in our play spaces, he left us his pot and a reward notice saying that if we could find all his gold and refill his pot by St. Pats Day, he would leave us a reward. The children have been having a wonderful time finding the gold (gold spray-painted items - anything I could think of - marbles, rocks, buttons, keys, feathers, spoons etc.). Each time they find a piece of gold, they place it in the leprechauns pot and I give them a "Lucky Shamrock" sticker to put on their cubby name label (we count how many items we have and how many stickers each child has - Math). On St. Pats Day, the leprechaun will return at nap time and pick up his small pot full of gold - and in return he will leave a large pot (a Halloween witch's cauldron) full of a reward. The reward will consist of shamrock shaped cookies, a pitcher of lemonade tinted green, festive cups and napkins, and a goodie bag for each child. Leprechaun Mischief While the children are out playing or before they arrive make some silly changes in the room like putting things out of place, hiding things, leaving gold chocolate coins, etc. Leave green footprints Blame it on the leprechaun when they come in. Explain all about St. Patrick's day and leprechaun Shamrock Hunt Take children into back yard or a park and have them look for four leaf clover. We actually found one last year!!!--- This can be done inside as well by making construction paper clover and 1 four leaf shamrock and have the kids try and find it. Coin Hunt Scatter gold chocolate coins in yard before children arrive and have fun searching for the "luck" left by the leprechauns. Language St. Patrick's Day is with us, The day when all that's seen To right and left and everywhere Its green, green, green! Math SHAMROCK COUNTING BOOKS Use white or light green paper to make a blank book for each of your children. Number the pages in each book from 1 to 5. Then hand out the books and invite the children to rubber-stamp matching numbers of green shamrock prints on their book pages. Or give them shamrock stickers to attach to their pages, if you wish. SHAMROCK LINEUP From green paper or felt, cut out a number of shamrock shapes in a variety of sizes. Invite your children to sort through the shamrocks and arrange them in a line from smallest to largest or from largest to smallest. Encourage them to count the number of shamrocks when they have finished. Shamrock Math Cut out Shamrock shapes.. Place some in a little cup or bag. Have the child separate them by color and count them. Graphing For preschoolers and up, buy jelly beans, or cut out colours of the rainbow. Place candy or shapes in a little cup or bag. Have the child separate them by color and count them. Have the child write how many colors they have of each color by filling in the squares. Make a worksheet to go with this activity. To make the graph, on the left side of the paper, write a number (up to the highest amount). On the bottom, make a square for each color. Make squares going up to go to the top of the graph. Underneath the graph, write, "I had __ pink hearts, purple, green, yellow, orange, etc. For older children, have them do percentages. Music Wee Little Patrick ( tune Yankee Doodle) Patrick is a leprechaun He has a sack of gold He hides it in a special place Between two stumps, I'm told I think I once saw Patrick Out in the woods at play He smiled and laughed and winked his eye And then he ran away Don't try to follow Patrick To find his treasure sack He'll twist and jump and run away And he never will come back I'm a little Leprechaun (sung to "I'm a Little Tea Pot") I'm a little Leprechaun short and green Here is my shamrock but I can't be seen, When you pull my feather,hear me scream (everyone scream) I'm a little Leprechaun,short and green. Shamrocks, shamrocks, On Ireland's hills, Greenest of greenOver rocks and rills Good luck do they bring, For one and all On St. Patrick's Day We can see them all. I'm a little Leprechaun (sung to I'm a Little Teapot") Dressed in green, The tiniest man That you have ever seen. If you ever catch me, so it's told, I'll give you my pot of gold. I'm Looking for a Leprechaun (sung to: "Mary Had a Little Lamb" ) I'm looking for a leprechaun, Leprechaun, leprechaun. I'm looking for a leprechaun, Do you know where he's gone? He wears a suit that's made of greeen, Made of green, made of green, He wears a suit that's made of green, Do you know where he's gone? He lives by a rainbow and hides his gold, Hides his gold, hides his gold, He lives by a rainbow and hides his gold, Do you know where he's gone? If you see a leprechaun, Leprechaun, leprechaun, If you see a leprechaun, Please tell me where he's gone! Outdoor The Leprechauns When the children go outside to play they turn the chairs and tables upside down. When the children take naps the leprechauns switch shoes around. On St. Patrick's Day the leprechaun will write a note apologizing for the mischief he has caused and tell them where he has hidden a pot of gold for them to find. They will follow the clues around the day care center until they find the gold covered candy coins. Two weeks ago, a leprechaun "lost" all his gold in our play spaces, he left us his pot and a reward notice saying that if we could find all his gold and refill his pot by St. Pats Day, he would leave us a reward. Let the children find the gold (gold spray-painted items - anything I could think of - rocks, buttons, keys, feathers, spoons etc.). Each time they find a piece of gold, they place it in the leprechauns pot and I give them a "Lucky Shamrock" sticker to put on. On St. Pats Day, the leprechaun will return at naptime and pick-up his small pot full of gold - and in return he will leave a large pot (a Halloween witch's cauldron) full of a reward. The reward will consist of shamrock shaped cookies, a pitcher of lemonade tinted green, festive cups and napkins, and a goodie bag for each child. Some of the other things we will be doing - the leprechaun will leave a green footprint trail to the pot, but we will only be able to see the trail with our "magic glasses Recipes: Snack Ideas Leprechaun Pudding Materials: one 1-ounce box of sugar free instant pistachio pudding for every five children, 1/2 cup of milk per child, 1 small resealable plastic bag per child, 1/2 cup measuring cup, 1 spoon per child. Put tablespoon of pudding mix in sandwich bag, add milk, then close the baggy and have kids shake and squeeze, then eat. St. Patrick's Day Punch Two envelopes lime Koolaid, mixed as directed. Add one quart softened pinapple sherbit. Last, put in one liter 7 up. |
Have you Tried? Ask everyone to wear green. When you send out the invitations, be sure to put "O" in front of everyone's name and call them by this Irish moniker at the party - for instance, Mr. O'Zutler and Mrs. O'Steinberg. Use postcards from Ireland for your invitations, if there's a store near you that specializes in Irish items. Have a contest for the best St. Patrick's Day limerick. Hand out temporary shamrock tattoos for your guests to wear. Decorate your table with tiny shamrock plants. Send each guest home with one as a party favor. Decorate with the color green - for luck! sort and graph Lucky Charms. cut out cloud shapes with different color streamers hanging from it to represent the rainbow. Use for Creative Movement or room decoration write a story about what you could find at the end of the rainbow or what would you do if you were caught by a leprechaun. make a giant, green 4 leaf clover using 4 heart shapes for leaves, then cut a stem. write a limerick c. 2006 - 2008 |
Prop Box Ideas Include the following collections of objects and materials for children to create, discover, and use for imaginary play. Store collections in boxes or baskets to be accessible at any time (indoors or outdoors) for children to enhance their dramatic play shamrock cut outs Leprechaun green or St. Patrick's Day themed table cloth, napkins green balloons green streamers books Add to the Environment Shamrock plants |
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| Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort."
--Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States |
| Curriculum Resources Art Dramatic Play Prop Boxes Fine Motor Games Language Math Music Outdoor Play Quiet Time Recipes Science/Sensory Fine Motor Themes MY BOOKS |
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