A Few Saint Patrick's Day Ideas...

In the dead of dreary March when all is white (or worse--icky mucky brown!) we've been busy greenin' up the place with St. Patrick's Day just around the corner! I thought I'd share a little bit o' the Irish fun we've been having:

We've been reading lots and lots of stories about Ireland, leprechauns and the like!
(Love that library!)

The boys busily decorating paper shamrocks

Adam LOVED gluing these little shiny shamrocks...

...but not as much as he loved GLITTER GLUE!!!

more shamrock fun...

This was a great way to keep them occupied while I read some of our school materials!

We played this fun game I found on Kidssoup called "Pot O Gold." It's basically letter and number recognition Bingo--leprechaun style. The boys had to hunt for paper coins hidden in the bowl with letters and numbers written on them. If the coin corresponded to their pot o' gold card they got one step closer to winning. With each turn I sneaked in a bunch of math and phonics questions to make it extra educational. They had so much fun they wanted to play over and over again!

Luke on the prowl for gold

Gold-digger #2 :)

I also found this cute craft idea courtesy of Catholic Icing (great site for all manner of Christian crafts and recipes!) It's a shamrock bowl cut from a green soda bottle!

I've been using mine to showcase a wee bit o' leprechaun gold (i.e. chocolate coins)! :)




A fun and simple snack we made was green popcorn!

To make it just add a little (ok, well actually A LOT!) of green food coloring to your kernels.


Let sit for awhile to absorb the coloring.



Add some additional food coloring to your popping oil and pop away!



Ta-da! Sure to make any leprechaun green with envy!
(Sorry, I'm queen of the bad pun.)


What the boys loved best of all about this snack was that it made their tongues green! :)



As the legend goes, St. Patrick expelled snakes from Ireland. To go along with this story we made these little snakes. I found the inspiration for these from Oriental Trading. (They had a similar Valentine-themed bug) I LOVE finding inspiration for crafts by thumbing through their catalogues!


If you want to make them they're very simple!
You'll need:
1 pipe cleaner
1 12" strip of green craft foam
1 lg. green pompom
2 googly eyes
glue dots**

**LOVE glue dots! Can't say enough good things about them. If you don't own any you need to get yourself to a craft store and buy some stat. Seriously, they're that good.

(By-the-way, just ignore the hole punch in the picture; the pipe cleaner turned out to be pointy enough that we didn't need it.)

Bend the foam strip into s-shaped curves, poking the pipe cleaner through the center of each.


Once you're finished feeding the pipe cleaner arrange the curves, leaving a bit of extra pipe cleaner at both ends (approx. 3 inches at one end, one inch at other end). Bend each end flat to secure.


Snip about 2 inches of extra pipe cleaner to use as antennae. ( I know, I know snakes don't have antennae, right? But they look so cute! And besides, these are legendary snakes anyway. *wink*) But if you're after more anatomically correct snakes I suppose you can leave off the antennae. :p



Turn the kids loose with glue dots, pompoms, googly eyes, mini shamrocks, bits of paper and whatever else you think would look cute on your legendary (albeit anatomically incorrect) snake.


Luke's snake


Adam's snake
He decided the pompom was actually a nose rather than a head. (He's an original, I tell ya!)


Fun with thumbprint shamrocks!



Luke has a green thumb.
Get it? Get it? (See, I told you I'm all about those bad puns! It's a sickness!)


Adam has a green...er, pinky!


Once they shamrocks dried we made stems with marker.


Ta-da!
Doesn't it look so springy and cheerful?
This craft couldn't get much simpler and the boys loved it!




Anyway, those are some of things that we've been up to lately. I'd love to hear about your St. Patty's projects and ideas! :)




Linked at:
Works for Me Wednesday

St. Patrick Printable Window Craft

I've always enjoyed decorating for Saint Patrick's Day. Sure it's in part because I'm Irish, but also I've always just loved the vibrant splashes of green in the midst of this otherwise dead and squishy brown season of March melt. And besides, it's a lovely reason to celebrate in the middle of Lenten somberness.

As I was putting out my feelers for St. Patty ideas to do with the kids I was struck by how few crafts I came across pertaining to Saint Patrick himself! Rather, my efforts turned up a multitude of leaping leprechauns, rainbows and shamrocks (Which, arguably could pertain to Saint Patrick since he used them to teach the concept of the Trinity...but still.) The lack of St Patrick ideas got my creative juices flowing (which is sometimes a dangerous thing ha!) and into my head popped the childhood memory of gazing admiringly at the gorgeous stained-glass windows of my church-St. Patrick in particular. I thought it would be fun to create a stained-glass looking image of Saint Patrick at home. So, I got to work with my paper and pen and here is the result:

Click the link below to print from Google Docs:

Saint Patrick Drawing

  saint patrick drawing

To achieve the stained-glass look, simply print the above image onto a sheet of vellum. Then, color with the medium of your choice (Note: To get a more vibrant color you can color BOTH SIDES of the vellum). We used plain ol' markers and crayons for ours. This is a fun craft for all ages and it looks beautiful in a sunny window! Here's how ours turned out:

my "window"

Luke's window

Adam's window...creative color palette, don't you think? ;)

Just wanted to share our stained glass windows with you. If you decide to make your own, I'd LOVE to see your masterpieces or hear how they came out! Please post a comment or link below! Happy crafting! :)

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!