St. Patrick's Day for Preschoolers - Part 3

In preparation for my St. Patrick's Day activities, I tried to stick with the symbols associated with the Celebration as well as with what Ireland was "known" for. Now I've never been to Ireland despite my really wanting to do so, so please don't take offense if I still associate the country with the potatoes and cabbage. :) In return, I promise not to take offense if you think of my home country, Canada, as a place filled with igloos, "American Indians" living in tepees, and Royal Mountain Police patrolling the streets of Montreal on their horses...

Cups & Counters - Pots of Gold and Gold Coins

Math trays are always very popular here. This one flew off the shelves as soon as it hit them. A treasure chest filled with coins? Black cups and rainbow cards featuring numbers? Adrian just loved the sight; particularly the shiny coins. He quickly set to work. It was quite easy; put in the black cup (chocolate fondue bowl set) the amount of coins (from Hobby Lobby) listed on the rainbow cards (made by Carolyn Wilhelm from the Wise Owl Factory and available through Pre-K and Sharing). Now later that week, I changed the cards so they would feature higher numbers and present a further challenge. If you do want these, they are available through Pre-K and Sharing as well. It just so happens Ms. Wilhelm e-mailed me to let me know she had made them with numbers 11-20 after she saw my interest in having them in such a range. Yay! That  totally made my day! By the way, I first saw a presentation of these cards and coins on Living Montessori Now, reminding me I should not forget to include pots of gold in my activities!

Math Grading - Light to Dark Green Water Cups

Known as the Emerald Isle, Ireland is often associated with the color green. As such, I prepared here a math grading exercise consisting of five little water cups filled with water and green food coloring. Adrian then had to sequence the cups properly from lightest green to darkest green. At first, it was easy but the two darkest ones were harder. Adrian had to pull up the paper behind the cups to see the difference in color and look towards the window to confirm his decision. 

Art - Potato Stamping in the the Shape of a Shamrock

The Irish Potato Famine is not something I really discussed with Adrian. He is a bit young to understand all the causes behind this tragedy but I wanted to involve a potato in this week's activity, as a way to remember what happened in Ireland in the 1800s. The printmaking pictured above is the result of a small round fingerling potato dipped in green washable tempera paint and pressed against the paper in a way to make it look like a shamrock. Dipping the side of the potato and dragging it on the paper will make the finishing touches to your shamrocks.

Fine  Motor - Trimming Leprechaun Beard for the Parade

Who needs a trim before the St. Patty's Day Parade? The Leprechauns of course! Using a Leprechaun clipart (source was a newspaper but works only under image search?), I  glued a piece of orange construction paper in different length to each Leprechaun and made little cuts all along. Adrian's job was to trim all the beard so the Leprechauns would look "presentable" and all even prior to the Sunday parade. Basically, all the hair had to be even with the white paper. The idea here is simply to make using scissors fun. Adrian is finally getting the hang of the scissors so I'm trying to keep him interested in using them by presenting fun activities. Cutting just to cut, I figured, will get boring...

Cabbage Experiment: Alkali or Acidic?

Would it be completely cliché if I included cabbage in my St.Patrick's Day activities? Because I did. I figured it'd be a good time to sneak in a little bit of cabbage science involving acidic versus alkali! As such, I bought half a red cabbage, cut up some chunks, soaked the cabbage for a while, pour the water into different cups. I then gathered different liquids we had in the kitchen, got some spoons out and invited Adrian in. The cups were all aligned and one was pushed aside as our control cup. Nothing would ever be poured into that one. 

Adrian was then asked to pour different liquids into different cups to see if there was a change of color. We discussed prior to the pouring that the water turning pink would indicate the liquid being poured was an acidic one and that the water turning blue would mean it would be an alkali. I also told him some would be more vibrant than others and that some might not change the color at all as they might be neutral liquids. Needless to say, seeing how his favorite liquids changed the color of the cabbage water was quite fun. We tried orange juice, milk, ketchup, tabasco, lemon juice, and toothpaste (we rinsed glasses in between since we still had some cabbage water left). For more information on this experiment, visit Fun Kids Live.

* * *

Your comments make my day ! 

(...but won't be visible until after approval due to increased spam...)

* * *

This week, I'm happily linking up to

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.

St. Patrick's Day for Preschoolers - Part 2

Is St. Patrick's Day celebrated in your area? Growing up in Quebec, I remember hearing about it a tad bit but not much. Maybe if I had gone to the big city I would have seen something but overall, until I moved to the United States, St. Patrick's Day never seemed observed very much. Needless to say, it went by completely unnoticed in Germany as well...except for my Irish dinner of course! :)

Shamrock Grading - Math

If you can't tell already, I love felt and creating educational materials with it. For St. Patrick's Day, I prepared this very simple math activity consisting of five shamrocks. All five were in a different shade of green and all five were cut in a different size. The activity here was a grading one. Adrian could grade by shade of green (lightest to darkest) but also by size (smallest to biggest). Finally, we graded by size AND shade simultaneously starting by the biggest which was also the darkest. Adrian loved that combination the best. Original idea : Stay At Home Educator. Templates: Rubber Stamping.

Buttoning / Unbuttoning a Leprechaun Vest
Practical Life

Well, technically, it is my husband's vest but for the week, it was called a Leprechaun's vest! :) Adrian's fine motor skills could use some help in the buttoning / unbuttoning department and since learning to button and unbutton on one's self can be challenging, I presented it here on a bigger piece of clothing, hung on the back of a chair. The vest was ideal as it had a buckle to tighten it up on the back. It still gave Adrian a bit of trouble but with a bit of practice and time, he'll get the hang of it. His hands just need some more strengthening. 

Shamrock with Lentils - Art & Fine Motor

Fine Motor skills! I just have a hard time not including activities involving these on a daily basis. During St. Patrick's Day Week, I printed a beautiful yet simple shamrock template, put a glue bottle out and a plate filled with lentils. The task was simple yet tedious: cover all the black lines with glue and lentils. How beautiful is that? And I bet it didn't take as long as you think either! :)

The Harp & Claude Debussy - Music

The harp and Ireland? Yes. Debussy and Ireland? Wait...What? I know it sounds strange but there is a relation I promise. The fact of the matter is, I wanted to include the harp this week. What better week anyway, right? We talked about the harp itself, how the harpist plays it, what it is made of, how big it really is and we watched a video of someone playing the harp (You Tube is wonderful!). We also played a little game of "Harp?" or "No harp"? with musical sound bytes involving harps, pianos, violins, etc. 

Now Debussy entered the picture with the harp because in many people's head, he really is the one who made the harp famous by writing pieces including such beautiful movements for the harp. As such, I thought I'd include our first composer study. We talked about Debussy himself, listened to his famous "Danse sacree et profane" written in part for the harp. I found a very nice video of two young harpists on YouTube playing this piece (A. Andruschenko & A. Sadikova) and we listened to it while we created our lentil shamrock. Debussy is very soothing. When the piece was over, I put on other famous compositions by Debussy as we wrapped up our day. I am hoping to include a new composer every month and hopefully link him/her in with our unit as I did  here.

* * *

Indoor Rainbow

Well that one worked...a bit. Our mirror was so tiny that we ended up with a tiny rainbow Adrian could barely make out. As such, no picture! :) If you do happen to have a bigger mirror, make it shine! Escapade Direct has instructions.

* * *

Your comments make my day ! 

(...but won't be visible until after approval due to increased spam...)

* * *

This week, I'm happily linking up to

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.

St. Patrick's Day for Preschoolers - Part 1

St. Patrick's Day activities! A tad bit late yes but it's nothing you didn't expect, right? :) All week I'll be posting about what we did last week to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Now, I do not have any Irish background whatsoever but my dear husband does on his father's side so it made our week all the more significant.  To you all dear readers, but particularly to you in Ireland, a Happy belated St. Patrick's Day.

"Froot Loops" Rainbow & Marshmallows

I know this craft is nothing new. I wouldn't even know who to credit for the idea since I saw it on so many blogs. I must credit We Made That for the template though! I know they used cotton balls for their clouds but I thought marshmallows were going to be just as cute since we were using food already for our rainbow. Now, this is not just a craft! After the rainbow was completed, I did ask Adrian about his use of "Froot Loops". For example, I asked him which color he used the most, the least and why he thought that was. We also counted the cereal, discussed the colors used, etc. A craft doesn't have to be just that. Other facets of learning can very well be involved.

Kid O Green Wooden Puzzle - Narrowest to widest & darkest to lightest

We've had this Kid O puzzle for a few years now and although it is quite basic for Adrian, I still brought it out. Needless to say, it took mere seconds for him to complete it. 

Tweezing green pompoms into green ice "cube" container

Found this ice tray at a local bargain store while we still lived in the United States. First time we use it. I thought it'd be great to bring it out for St.Patrick's Day Week being that it's green! It also happens to be the perfect size for the small pompoms. Add to it Learning Resources' tweezers and you're all set to tweeze pompoms into the tray.

Ireland Lapbook

I've never put together a lapbook. I'm not much of a Lapbook person or worksheet person. Don't get me wrong; I'm a huge nerd and I personally loved them as a child (still so!) but they're a lot of work to put together and they're not that much fun for younger children much of the time. Adrian would much rather handle objects than a piece of paper. Anyhow, being that we were talking about St.Patrick's Day, I gave him bits of information about it through the week but only orally. Towards the end of the week, I finally decided to present an itsy bitsy Lapbook containing 3 sheets: a map of Ireland, a map of Europe showing where Ireland is in position to Germany (where we currently live) and a blank flag of Ireland ready for coloring (with labels at the bottom). We went through it all rather quickly because the interest was not really there. Maps can be printed by visiting DLTK's Coloring and the flag at HomeschoolShare.

Is is Oobleck, is is gak, is it goop? Liquid or solid?

Well although no one seems to agree on the name of this substance...everyone seems to agree on how fun it is! I initially had thought of making green slime for St. Patrick's Day but Borax being difficult to get here made me go with something more natural: Goop! I colored my water with a few drops of green food coloring prior to mixing it in the cornstarch so it would be a nice green in honor of the Patron Saint. If you need instructions on how to make goop, it's pretty simple, I personally just asked Adrian to pour 1 cup of cornstarch into the bowl followed by half a cup of green colored water. I then mixed it with a spoon. It takes a few minutes to mix well so be patient before adding more water. You really won't need more. As for the fun part, Adrian wasn't so sure about plunging his hands into the bowl so I let him stir with the spoon for a bit. Then I demonstrated. I slowly inserted my finger into the goop and then quickly. He thought it was fascinating how goop could be both a liquid and a solid. We let it run through our fingers and then quickly grabbed some and tried to make a ball with it. We also poured from one bowl to another. Hard to do. Almost solid going from one to another yet very liquid looking at the bottom of both! Fascinating!

* * *

St. Patrick's Day - Celebrated on March 17 for over 1,000 years already!

* * *

Your comments make my day ! 

(...but won't be visible until after approval due to increased spam...)

* * *

This week, I'm happily linking up to

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.