Happy Saint Patricks Day!

My son has been busy all week learning about Saint Patrick's Day. Saint Patrick's Day can be a hard concept for little ones to grasp. In fact it seems to me that the holiday has turned very "adult" over the years focusing on drinking and adult parties, hence the lack of "kid friendly" events. But never the less it is still a fun holiday to celebrate and there are ways to explain to your little ones about the holiday.

We first started out simple and examined the holiday symbols using this very simple baby book:

It examines the typical symbols such as : Shamrocks, Leprechauns, Pot of gold, etc.

Then we read this easy reader book:

This book explains more about what you do on Saint Patrick's Day like go to parades, dress in green, eat Irish foods, and watch Irish dancing.

These books were great, but being a teacher I wanted my son to know the real meaning behind it because I hate to say this I don't think I ever even knew! Growing up all I know is Saint Patrick's Day was a day you wear green, so the leprechauns don't pinch ya haha! But when I started teaching about it to my classes I found this wonderful Discovery Education Video that not only shows the Irish Customs for Saint Patrick's Day, but also explains about Saint Patrick and why he is so important to the Irish people, now wither my 3 year old understood this or not, is unknown, but he did sit and watch the video! Which can be rare for and extremely hyper child!

After learning about the holiday I found some great toddler appropriate crafts to do, to celebrate the holiday,

First we brushed up on our color skills, We have always sang a song about the order of the color of the rainbow ROYGBIP, so he was familiar with the order and we finger painted a rainbow. We cut out half of a paper plate, finger painted the colors of the rainbow, added cotton balls for clouds, hung construction paper gold coins from the bottom and.............

tadda........ Ended up with a rainbow mobile. My son choose to hang it in the playroom!

Next we decided to just color a simple Shamrock, because that is the most popular Saint Patrick's Day Symbols.

I love the toddler coloring!

 

We also made a Shamrock using his tiny hands, I first painted his hand green, then we placed his hand four times on the page to make a sort-of Shamrock shape!


And due to request we made another Rainbow mobile, this time coloring the rainbow using a cut out arch from a paper plate, and three hanging Saint Patrick's Day Symbols.

We are currently finishing up this little dude:

And lastly a little rant about Kroger! Dear Kroger, you did not have ANY white carnations, in fact I barely saw any carnations. How can my son die the flower green, if you do not provide the flower! UGGGGG sigh, I wanted to show my son how we could change the color of a carnation, but unfortunately Kroger the only grocery store within miles does not sell white carnations. So that will be an idea for next year!

To finish the holiday I am hoping to make a traditional Irish dinner tonight, I am thinking Irish stew, or Shepard's pie. Hopefully my two picky eaters, aka husband and son will eat it!


Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all the wanna be Irish out there!