Happy St Patrick's Day

We LOVE celebrating St. Patrick's Day at our house! I love creating the special memories with our children! My ultimate goal is for them to always wish they were at home on holidays -so I really do them special! Wouldn't it be great for my children to be grown and away from home and call me saying, "Mom, it is St Patrick's Day and I wish I was home to eat Lucky Charms and Rainbow Cupcakes." So, with that in mind, I LOVE celebrating and creating memories now!

Breakfast

We start at breakfast with Lucky Charms! This cereal only appears in our house on St. Patrick's Day - they don't get it at any other time during the year! Wow, they look forward to it!

Lunch

Lunch on St. Patrick's Day includes shamrocks, Leprechaun magic, and rainbows! They have a Lucky Charm rice crispy treat (I found these at Target this year), rainbow Twizzlers, a rainbow cupcake, and shamrock sandwich made from an English Muffin, cheese and a sliced green pepper to look like a shamrock, a pot of gold, and Leprechaun pudding. The Leprechaun pudding is vanilla pudding with some green food coloring hiding inside - the kids will stir it up so see the Leprechaun Magic turn it green!

This is our Pot of Gold Jello - yellow jello-jigglers cut into gold pieces!

I love our Rainbow cupcakes - white cake mix separated into 6 bowls and turned red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Spoon one color at a time and use a toothpick to spread the color. Bake as directed on the cake box.

Dinner

Dinner was cabbage and sausage - that is Irish right? With green corn muffins and green salad.

Dessert was Shamrock Shakes:

Shamrock Shakes are mint ice-cream blended with mint extract, green food coloring, and milk! Yummy! Happy St. Patty's Day!

Leprechaun Magic Part 5

In our Steve Spangler Science Kit we were given some rare Leprechaun eggs. These eggs are so cool because they disappear in water.
Here are the Leprechaun eggs

Brooke says, "Magic Hands" and puts the eggs into the water. They disappear!

Then we can pull them back out and there they are!

The Magic is in the water-absorbing polymer that forms an amazing clear sphere. Due to the refraction in the cup of water, it looks as if the spheres completely disappear.

So what can first, the Leprechaun or the egg?

Leprechaun Magic Part 3

Just as we sometimes get snow in North Carolina, the Leprechauns sometimes get snow in the land of the Leprechauns....and I have some. Now the snow looks like ordinary white snow, but with some Leprechaun Magic, the snow is actually green!





Our container of Leprechaun Snow:

Idea and supplies from Steve Spangler Science.

Leprechaun Magic Part 4

Everyone knows that Leprechauns hide their pots of gold at the end of a rainbow. But we are never fast enough to find the gold! Leprechauns are tricky creatures and, I think, they hide their pots of gold at the end of rainbows we can't see! So, we got some special glasses to help us find the rainbows.

We put on the glasses and rainbows appears all over the house! They were everywhere!

Here is why? The Rainbow Detecting Glasses have special lenses that diffract the light. When light is separated we see red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet - the rainbow!

Leprechaun Magic Part 2

How do Leprechauns catch green fish? They use green worms and we know how to make them.
We added some soduim alginate to a water-calcuim solution. The calcium helps to link the small molecules of the alginate into a polymer, a long chain of smaller molecules......in other words, it makes green worms from worm goo.

Idea and supplies from Steve Spangler Science

Leprechaun Magic Part 1

With St. Patrick's Day soon approaching, we have begun some Leprechaun Magic at our house.

Today we learned the secrets of the Leprechaun Sandwich bag! Leprechauns eat enormous sandwiches at lunch time and we happened to find one of their sandwich bags.

We tied a knot at the end of the bag. I asked Jake to try to blow up the bag. He tried about 10 times and gave up saying it would take forever.

I told Jake that I could blow up the bag with just one breath! And I did! Then we talked about why I was able to blow it up with just one breath and he was not even close after 10 blows.

Here is why:

Here is Jake blowing it up with one breath.

Idea and bag from Steve Spangler Science

Sequencing

objective:
a. to sequence 3 events in a story
b. to retell the events of a story using the pictures as a guide
c. to reinforce logic skills, patterning, and sequencing
d. To prepare for pre-reading and pre-writing

Points to remember:
1. Make sure you are working in a quiet environment so you child can hear you easily.

Lesson:
1. Read the story to your child showing the pictures as you go.
Eddie the Elephant rolls in the mud. He thinks it is fun to splash and play and get all dirty.
To get clean, Eddie will give himself a shower. He sucks up water in his big trunk.

Eddie sprays himself all over with the water! That looks like fun!

2. Set the 3 pictures on the table and ask, "Which came first?" and let your child choose the picture. Then ask, "Which comes next?" and finally, "Which comes last?"

3. Once your child has put the pictures in correct sequence, ask her to re-tell the story

Modifications:

1.