ST. PATRICK'S DAY FUN

~Punkin is 31 months old.~

Theme: St. Patrick's Day
Shape: Shamrock / Clover
Color: Green
Number: 11

We ended up having something going on every single morning this past week, so we didn't get to do any morning calendar time or tot trays (except the one below that I found she had gotten into one afternoon when I was using the restroom.) Therefore, we didn't really have much time to read all the St. Patrick's Day books or watch any videos that I had planned either. Oh well. I think we'll keep out the tot trays for next week (since I spent time getting them ready and she didn't get to play with them) even though we'll go onto our Letter O theme. Since we typically do our formal "tot school" learning time in the afternoons right after her nap, we were still able to get a lot of those activities done, and she even asked a few nights to do "schooltime" after dinner as well.

TOT TRAYS

This was the one tot tray she snuck in this week. She was infatuated with the flowers and sticking them into the styrofoam.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Clover Letter match from 2 Teaching Mommies.

St. Patrick's Day Symbol Size Sort from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Punkin used hearts to "build" colorful shamrocks by looking at example templates. I got the idea from The Activity Mom, but I made my own documents, since I don't have any felt or foam at the moment. (I also created a harder version using green patterns instead of different colors, but we didn't try that one.)

Hunting for our number 11 using a green dot marker.

Graphing Lucky Charm marshmallows using the printout from 2 Teaching Mommies. Punkin once again enjoyed the graphing activities this week, and she really grasped the idea of "building a tower" with her graphing pieces (versus putting them in any box or starting at the top).

She also spun a spinner with St. Patrick's Day pictures on it (from Musings of Me) and used stickers to graph her spins.

Punkin did great counting the cute St. Patrick's pictures on these count and clip cards from Musings of Me and then clipping her clothespins to the matching number. She really was able to do this without my help.

Punkin drew number cards and counted that many "gold coins" into her "pot of gold."

She also set shamrocks in number order, then counted that many gold coins onto each one.

For her snack one day, I had her count out green marshmallows onto her number box counting sheet. Then to eat them, she used a toothpick to "poke" each one. She called them "marshmallow lollipops."

We tried THIS shape snake game. I set out the foam cards and told her to find "the rectangle wth a 10 in it" for example.

Then, she laced it onto her yarn and tried to shake it to get it to the doorknob. But, I think she was too short or something, because it didn't work as well as I thought.

Punkin had so much fun with this activity. I saw this idea on Totally Tots and adapted it for this unit. I gave her one shamrock with a lowercase letter on it at a time. She told me what it was and the sound it made, then we sang the "Hokey Pokey" as she put it in and took it out of the box and we did the motions to the song. She LOVED it!

Then, after we did that for each letter, she'd take that letter and line it up in order on the carpet. When she was done, I told her she spelled the word "shamrock" and she walked down the line, saying each letter, and then proclaimed, "That spells shamrock!"

She loved this activity just as much. I wrote numbers 10-12 on about 10 shamrocks and hid them around the living room. Then, she hunted for them one at a time. Before each one she found, we sang this song to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell." (Adapted from a song in the G is for Green unit found HERE.)

We'll find a shamrock now.

We'll find a shamrock now.

And see what number is on it.

And then we'll take a bow.
Then, after she found a shamrock, she'd bring it to me, tell me the number on it, and take a bow. It was so funny!

ART / CRAFTS

A friend that I subbed for a few weeks ago gave me this extra shamrock template, so I had Punkin "paint" the shamrock with glue, and we sprinkled it with green sugar sprinkles. (I was going to use green glitter, but I couldn't find any, so we improvised.)

Using the idea from No Time for Flashcards, I printed out a shamrock template, and had Punkin glue green marshmallows around the edges. I was impressed with how well she did.

Punkin also made a shamrock by dipping her hand in green paint and making three green handprints. I saw this idea in the unit downloaded from HERE.

MISC. FUN

Punkin had so much fun making "Green Fizz." I saw the idea at I Can Teach My Child. I colored some vinegar with green food coloring and Punkin worked on using the medicine dropper (a skill we've been working on) to drop green vinegar on some baking soda. She kept doing this until she used up all the liquid. Each time she saw the fizzy reaction, she'd look at me and go, "OOOHH!"

On St. Patrick's Day, Punkin enjoyed a green muffin tin meal for dinner.....in our blue muffin tray. LOL! Anyway, she had green milk, green cottage cheese, celery, broccoli, green goldfish, green tortellini, and a green cookie.

She helped make those green cookies at Grandma's house on Tuesday. We just added some green food coloring to a sugar cookie mix. She "painted" on the frosting, dumped on the sprinkles, and even helped Grandma wash the dishes when they were done.

She also had fun peeling her first hard boiled egg....and taking a bite! She found out that she really likes hard boiled eggs.

And of course, she spend HOURS this week coloring and drawing on her pad of paper. She can spend LONG stretches of time just "writing" and "drawing."

That was our St. Patrick's Day theme! Thanks for reading. To see what other tots were up to this week, go to 1+1+1=1.