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.

I've Got My Eye on You

 
This week we are focusing on the letter "E". So with Halloween coming up I thought it would be fun to do a eye theme. We started out by talking about everyone's eye color. I took some close up photos of Alex's gorgeous eyes so he could look at them closely.

 

 I couldn't find any eye themed printables so I created my own. I made a tracing page get the eye to the glasses and practicing writing E's, I drew a giant eye that Alex wanted to color with Do A Dots, and we practiced counting googly eyes. 

We made some crazy eyed hand and foot  print monsters. I was inspired by Little Learners Lounge's Math Monsters.

But Alex's absolute favorite thing we did was an "Eyeball" sensory bin. I saw this on I Can Teach My Child and I knew we had to try it. To make this I used water beads and googly eyes. I found hydrated ones at the Dollar Tree about a month ago and have been saving them. You can buy them hydrated or dehydrated. Water beads are water absorbent polymers that are non-toxic and biodegradable, they come in a variety of colors and are usually used for floral arrangements. You just want to make sure little ones don't put them in their mouths.

They really are so fun to squish and play with. Alex has been loving them. I'm not sure how long they will last, but they still look good a day later.

For dessert I made Alex some eyeball cookies. Yum!

They are a half of a Golden Oreo, a blue M&M and some red food coloring for the veins. The idea was from Craftberry Bush.

The Eye books we read: