Bellaire goes "green"...

This week, our Theme was Luck of the Irish in celebration of our favorite Irish friend, St. Patrick. The children had so much fun counting gold, chasing leprechauns, and investigating shamrocks. We began by simple marshmallow stamping. Each child was given jumbo marshmallows and green paint and shown a picture of a shamrock.

Our focus number for the week was three and our color was..well, green of course. We encouraged them to stamp three times to create the shape of the shamrock . What an easy multifunctional fine motor, art, and math activity!

Our toddler room needed a little magic in their day, and what better way than crawling through rainbows. We threw a few colorful pool noodles together and sent them on a search for the pot of gold.

The preschool room needed a little gross motor also, so they practiced stability with a shamrock "balance" beam. We simply laminated some shamrocks and encouraged them to walk across without their feet touching the floor. We are also able to incorporate a little math by counting and discussing which shamrocks were larger and which were smallest.

You cannot play in water on St. Patrick's day without it being green! We threw in some sensory fun in the younger rooms by laminated gold coins and asking the children to find them in the water and hide them from the leprechaun. Can you guess what our color focus was?

Our shape for this week was hearts. The children discovered that three hearts put together created a shamrock. We laid out the hearts and had them place them to make their shamrock.

Who doesn't love rainbow colored pasta? Dried pasta is a great fill and dump element that is safer than sand and such for the littles. We dyed the pasta with food coloring and let them do the rest. We plan to use these later in the week for necklace lacing.

Speaking of necklace lacing, you can't celebrate St. Patrick's day without fruit loop necklaces. All ages enjoyed this tasty fine motor activity as they worked on their hand-eye coordination. The older ages took it a step further and added in patterns and sequencing.

If I found a pot of gold....

This activity was a great writing and fine motor activity. The children were encouraged to come up with six wishes and write them on a rainbow colored strip of paper. The older classrooms wrote themselves and practiced their scissor skills, while the younger groups focused on glueing and placement. It is always fun to see what answers the children give!

Click here to download the printable