Holiday: St. Patrick's Day

We took a break today from our seasons and did some St. Patrick's Day things since that's coming up on Sun.

We did our calendar as usual, then played a new game to review our letters.  (Not that she wouldn't have played memory again, but I needed something new).  I made a game board (inspired by this idea) and put it in a pocket protector.  Then I drew on the letters A-I with permanent marker (using a whiteboard marker will erase it later) using both upper and lower case letters.  We then used my letter cards and followed the same rules as Candy Land (a household favorite around here).  I added pictures to my letter cards and they helped a TON.  At the preschool where I teach, we use a program called Zoophonics.  Not that I am endorsing it or saying it's the best option out there, but it is an option and it's the one we use at school.  Anyway, the pictures I put on the cards correspond with the animals from Zoo-Phonics, so when she pulled a card, she could use the picture to make it more concrete and less abstract.  She did AWESOME today with her letters.  She would pull a card, then be able to say "G guh gorrila" and then move her piece to the corresponding spot on the board.  I could see a HUGE improvement from just the card with the letters.

And I won.  :)

For our numbers practice I pulled out an egg carton and I labeled each spot with a number.  She then used popcorn kernels to put in the corresponding amount.  The original idea suggested using tweezers to do it, but today was a long day and I didn't want to deal with that.

Then we did St. Patrick's Day.  I messed up my library books so I didn't get the right book for tonight, so we just chose a book to read that didn't necessarily pertain to the activities.  So we just talked about how Sunday is St. Patrick's Day and what that means.  We talked about lucky shamrocks, so we then used a green pepper to stamp some. (Apparently I don't have green paint).

 I thought they were pretty cute!  She then decided she wanted to color them in.

By the end, she had decided to color the whole paper pink, so now it's just a solid pink page with shamrocks somewhere in there.  Haha.

Lastly, we made a shamrock hat she can wear.  The paper plate was really hard to cut through for her, so we cut together using mommy's scissors.  She would squeeze with both hands while I would guide the paper plate.

Both St. Patrick's ideas came from this site.  I plan on doing a few more of them either on Sunday (if I am still alive then... I usually am so exhausted by the end of the week that Sunday is my relax day) or on Tues when we do school again.  Who says you can't celebrate a holiday after it has past?!?!  I do plan on serving Marshmellow Mateys and green milk to her on Sunday for breakfast and maybe dying whatever is for dinner green.  :)  I love holidays!  Even little one like St. Patrick's Day!