St.Patrick’s Day
When I was brainstorming St. Patrick’s Day ideas I thought why not make a leprechaun beard! You can find hats for nothing at big box stores but no where had any beards. Here is an easy tutorial for your older leprechaun in training. My son was sleeping when I made this but has played with it numerous times since it’s creation, though it’s more of a monster mask on him!
- Gather your materials. You will need 3 pieces of construction paper, one for the base and 2 bright orange for the hair. Some yarn, scissors, a pencil, glue and a hole punch.
- Start by drawing a beard on the paper, I put it up to my face and measured from ear to ear.
- Cut out .
- For the hair you want to cut the orange construction paper into strips
- Roll them tightly around the pencil to make a curl.
- Glue them to the beard, starting at the bottom
- Keep going
- Let dry
- Punch holes for the yarn
- Add the yarn for the ties
- put it on !
Shamrock Garland
How could I let a holiday go by without a garland? I love decorating with garlands .What makes this one so fun is that it’s made with coffee filters. The surface absorbs the paint well and when it’s dry it really looks like a leaf. Add a little glitter and you have a perfect and inexpensive St.Patrick’s Day decoration.
- Gather your materials. You will need multiple coffee filters,some yellow and blue paint, a paintbrush, some gold glitter, sharp scissors, and some green ribbon .
- Start by cutting your coffee filters into shamrocks. With really little toddlers I would draw a shamrock and let them paint it then cut out, painting on the small shamrocks is a challenge , they have to be careful and for a young toddler it would prove to be really frustrating which isn’t what we want.
- Mix your green paint. When activities are shorter like this one I like to have my son mix the paint, he loves it too!
- Paint your shamrocks
- Let dry
- Add the gold glitter and let dry.
- Poke 2 small holes in each shamrock, I alternated between the top and the stem.
- Thread the ribbon through
- Hang up and enjoy!
Book !
`S is for Shamrock : An Ireland Alphabet” by Eve Bunting is a book full of possibilities. The text is long, but you can easily shorten it for young children to only be each alphabetical item such as L for leprechaun , V for vikings and Z for zed . Older children will enjoy the detailed information on each page and even the youngest babies will love the illustrations.
St. Patrick’s Day
Treats!
I am pretty health conscious , especially when it comes to what my family eats, but treats are not banned and candy has a special place in my heart. When my son and I made both the treats in this post he turned up his nose at the sugary one and gobbled up 2 spinach and banana popsicles in a row! I was proud and it made up for all the marshmallows he ate while we were making the shamrocks. You can win every time right?
Shamrock
Crispy Rice Treats
- Gather your materials. You will need 5 1/2 cups of marshmallows, 5 1/2 cups of rice crispy type cereal, 1/4 cup of butter, green sprinkles, green candies , some non stick spray , a large sauce pan , 2 baking sheets and a shamrock cookie cutter. * I had food coloring out but didn’t end up using it, the sparkles bled enough.
- Stir the green sparkles and candies into the cereal.
- Melt the butter over low heat .
- Add the marshmallows to the melted butter and stir until smooth.
- Add the cereal mix.
- Mix well
- Put the mix onto one baking sheet that has been sprayed with baking spray
- Press down with the 2nd, this compacts it down perfectly
- Let cool in your fridge for an hour.
- Cut out with cookie cutter and enjoy.
Spinach Ooooobie
Popsicles
Popsicles
These are my son’s favorite smoothies ( ooobies) poured into a popsicle mold
- Gather your materials. You will need a blender, banana or vanilla yogurt,some milk, frozen spinach,a very ripe banana and popsicle molds.
- Put all ingredients into a blender and blend.
- Pour into the mold and freeze for at least 3 hours.
- Pop out and enjoy!
St.Patrick’s Day is on the way and here is our first lucky craft! I love making collages because they offer wide boundaries and can be a small easy craft or for older children it can go on and on with layers of materials and textures.
- Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard ( cereal boxes are perfect weight) , a marker, green paint or crayons, glue, and various green collage material. I am using pom poms , tissue paper and felt.
- Draw a shamrock on the cereal box.
- Have your child paint or color the shamrock.
- While they are painting take a second to cut the tissue paper, and felt into small pieces.
- When the shamrock is dry,add the glue
- Add your collage materials. There is no wrong way to do this, so have fun !
- Let dry and cut out.
Books!
For few great St. Patrick’s Day Books you have to check out
Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile
This blog is wonderful, the reviews and age recommendations are spot on.
I think you should bookmark this link for sure.
I read on a message board that had posted my link that one mom was disappointed that I don’t have more non art activities, so here you go ! This is mess free, fun and so easy to make more challenging for older children , or easy as pie for the little guys. My son and I played this from the time he got up from nap until dinner was on the table . I have a feeling we’ll be playing it tomorrow too! Oh and if there is something specific you would like to see us try- let me know I am always open to new things .
- Gather your materials. You will need some play coins, a marker and a green piece of paper. * For really little guys instead of the paper you can just use a change purse and simply have them hunt for the coins.
- Trace the coins on the paper
- Fill in the numbers, we are doing 10 coins but customize this for your child, more or less whatever works. Make it challenging but not impossible. Having the numbers offers up different options for how to play , you can simply hunt for the coins, and place them on the numbers. You can hunt for them then have your child specifically put them on the number you designate. I tried both and my son liked to choose which numbers to pop the coin on then count them and start over.
- Hide the gold. Can you see it in my picture? Make it obvious at first, with little guys make sure it’s in plain view, the goal isn’t to be a better hider than they are a finder, it’s for them to find them feel pride in it, then tag on a little math too !
- Go searching for the lucky gold .
- Count your gold , and start again !
FREE Plan By Email
Find Us On Scholastic.com
Take Us With You
Grab Our Button
