St. Patty's Day Fun

Here are a few things that we have been doing in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

I made Alex a green St. Patrick themed sensory bin.

I had everything on hand. A lot of it is left over from last years bin So what's inside?
Dried green split peas
Some snakes
Some craft foam rainbow colored strips
craft foam shamrocks
yellow jewels
some painted gold stones 
A green funky gift bow
Lacing beads and string
Green spoons
Green and yellow interlocking stars

I also made him some rainbow play dough. I used the recipe I found via Counting Coconuts' blog. It's so easy and turns out great every time!!I found these perfect containers at the Dollar Tree for storing the play dough, a package of 6 for $1!

We will be traveling on St. Patrick's day so I made Alex a early St. Patrick's themed lunch.

Its a PB&J sandwich cut into a circle for the leprechaun's face, the eyes are marshmallow and mini m&m's, the rosy cheeks are a freeze dried yogurt bites. His beard is cheddar cheese and his hat is a green apple. I also included a small amount of Lucky Charms cereal, 3 gold chocolate coins and a glass of green milk. I was inspired by Meet the Dubiens lunch although hers was healthier.

Alex made a some fun St. Patty's themed things at preschool too.  A silly shamrock guy.

And a shamrock crown.

Of course have been reading a few fun themed books too.

A Beautiful St. Patrick's Day

Its finally a nice warm sunny day here. We went to the playground and had a lot of fun playing. Alex was so excited to finally get outside and play. He loves the playground.

And a little rainbow of fruit and some shamrock bread for lunch.

Hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day

Shamrocks and Rainbow Pudding

Today we made some shamrocks from a paper towel roll. Theses were inspired from No Time For Flash Card's four leaf clovers. Ours are are only 3 leaf shamrocks, and Alex wasn't into painting the centers. I didn't have any green pipe cleaners either, but besides all that they came out pretty cute.

Here is what we did:

Painted a paper towel roll green

I cut the dry painted roll  into small circle

I put 2 holes in the bottom of each circle and Alex laced them on a pipe cleaner

Form the circles into a heart shape then twist the pipe cleaner into the clover shape

Added them to a vase with some dried split peas

I also made some rainbow vanilla pudding in preparation for St. Patty's Day tomorrow. I simply split up the pudding and added some food coloring to make all the colors of the rainbow then layered it into a small clear glass custard dish. Alex ate lunch pretty good today (he's a horrible eater) so I let him try some early. Yummy!

Alex approved!!

Lots O' Green

We were busy today. We went to our Gymboree class in the morning and then came home and did some artwork. We made some potato stamp collages, did some color mixing, played with Moon Sand and played a Ispy game.

I cut a potato in half and cut out a shamrock shape

Trying out the stamp

Adding some glitter

We used some texture brushes too

Finished Shamrock

Green Collage

We did a little color mixing experiment. I filled two clear bottles, one with yellow colored water and one with blue colored water. I let Alexander pour them into a empty clear bowl to create the color green. He really liked this and wanted to do it over and over.

Oops...The last time didn't go so well. This is what I get for taking photos :/

We got this Moon Sand for Alexander a while ago. It is a big hit. It was blue and yellow, but now we mixed it together in a old tin and made a green color. Its kind of messy but a lot of fun, I'm pretty sure Alexander is going to love playing at the beach this summer.

I collected a bunch of Alexander's little toys that were green and put them all together in a bag. We dumped them out and played a Ispy game, where I would call out the name of something and he would find it and put it back in the bag.

St. Patty's Day Sensory Bin

So I finally got around to making Alex a new sensory bin. I've been thinking about it for weeks. It was very inexpensive. I only had to purchase 3 bags of green split peas and the rest was things I had around the house or made.

Whats Inside:
3 bags of Green Split Peas
Yellow and green cups (used for dying eggs)
Small funnel
2 green spoons (leftover from a b-day party)
5 Green snakes (leftover from Halloween)
some yellow gems (leftover from fall bin)
A handful of gold stones (these were from his construction bin and I painted them with some gold acrylic paint and added some glitter)
A few green felt flowers
Stripes of craft foam in rainbow colors to create a rainbow
Rainbow foam letters to spell out ALEXANDER
2 paper leprechauns that I printed out and covered in contact paper.
4 shamrocks cut out of green craft foam

Linking to:
Show and Tell @ ABC and 123
Fun For Kids Fridays

St. Patrick's Day Fun

Its March so to get into the spirit of St. Patrick's Day we read a cute little book about leprechauns.

That's What Leprechauns Do by Eve Bunting

Its a great little read for St. Patty's Day about 3 leprechauns, their mischief and their pot of gold. It gives the reader a good idea of what a leprechaun is and that was great for us because Alex had no idea.  The illustrations by Emily Arnold McCully are very cute and whimsical too.

I also made him some St. Patty's Day play dough- green with gold glitter. I got the recipe and the great idea from Counting Coconuts. I've used this recipe a few times and it turns out great every time.

and we did some counting practice with a worksheet from Making Learning Fun.

Linking to:

Show and Tell @ ABC and 123
Fun For Kids Fridays
Read, Explore , Learn