Hooray for St. Patrick's Day

Gathering Activity:   Rainbow Bottles

We made these adorable rainbow bottles from Little Wonders Days.

Materials Needed: Colorful pom poms of various sizes, rice, empty and dry water bottle, funnels

Directions:
1-Put rainbow pom poms inside of the water bottle.  (This is great fine motor practice, especially as they try to place the large pom poms inside the small opening).

2-Funnel Rice into the bottle. We filled ours about half way.

3-Place the lid on the bottle and shake!

Circle Time : Hooray for St. Patrick's Day by Joan Holub

We read Hooray for St. Patrick's Day! This is a cute book with lift up flaps and a hidden Leprechaun on each page.  The children took turns searching for him.  It is a simple explanation about some of the traditions associated with St. Patrick's Day.

We sang I'm A Little Leprechaun. 

We also watched and sang along with Rachel Coleman  from Signing Time's "Rainbow Song" from My Favorite Things. 

Snack: Shamrock Pretzels

We ate these adorable Shamrock Pretzels we found on Family Fun's website.  We also added yummy green grapes!

Art Activity: Shamrock Painting 

Materials Needed: Finger paint paper, yellow and blue paint 

Directions: Cut a large shamrock shape from finger-painting paper. Put a squirt of yellow and a squirt of blue paint on the shamrock. Have the children mix the colors together to create green.  

Games

1- Search For the Leprechaun's Gold

Hide gold coins and gold wrapped candy for the children to find.  As they find the gold, have them return it to a pot.  

When all of the gold has been collected, have the children sort the candy and coins into two different piles.  We then divided the candy together as a group and let each child eat one piece.

2-Pass the Shamrock

We played music and passed a green shamrock around the circle.  When the music stopped, the child holding the shamrock ran around the circle.  

3-Leprechaun, Leprechaun, Where's Your Gold?

This is a game played like "Doggy, Doggy, Where's Your Bone?" A gold coin is hidden behind a child's back and another child sneaks up and takes the coin.  The Leprechaun then tries to guess which child has the coin.  We let the children guess until they find the coin.  

Follow-up:  My son and I do lots of fun activities without our Mommy and Friends as well.  This was a fun one that I wish I had thought of BEFORE class so we could have done it with all of our friends.

4-Rainbow Pom Pom Sort

We used our stackable balls and placed the halves upside down on our table.  Using a clothespin, my son sorted colorful pompoms into the holes of the corresponding colors.  So many great skills.  Fine motor development, sorting, counting, etc...

We also enjoyed this fun St. Patrick's Day sensory box.