St. Patrick's Day Reading, Math and Craft Activity

St. Patrick's Day 

Reading, Math and Craft Activity

for Homeschool

This is the first year we have really done anything St. Patrick's Day themed.  Last year we did a lephrechaun craft with friends but that was it.  I think seeing all the fun St. Patrick's Day fun Crystal from Wanna Be Balanced has been posting has been making me feel like a holiday slacker lol, seriously, check out everything they have been doing that is St. Patrick's Day themed!

So we started out by finding this fun little song that teaches about St. Patrick's Day and so that is how we learned what it is all about.  I thought it was quite interesting, I never had any clue what St. Patrick's Day is other than people wear green and lots of people get drunk.  

We started out with our rainbow craft. My daughter held up a scrap strip of paper and said "I want to make a rainbow with this!" and that is how we came up with the idea to make more strips of colored paper, fold them accordion style and create a standing rainbow.  For the base we used a recycled cereal box covered in sky blue paper.  To fasten the rainbow strips we used the glue gun...I thought with elmers glue it might dry to slowly to hold them in place and I get impatient with that kind of stuff...so we use the glue gun a lot!  When making the rainbow, you have to make the colors on the bottom progressively shorter than the ones on the top, we started with them all the same length and then just glued and trimmed as needed.

For our reading pot of gold activity I wrote some of the sight words that J has been working on lately, some she knows and others that she needed more practice with, on yellow paper and then put it through the laminator and cut them out in circles.  I put them in the pot (which was from halloween) and then hid the pot in the play room with their rainbows.  I put a few strips of fabric leading into the playroom for a following the rainbow effect to lead them to the pot of gold.  

(sure gonna miss this playroom....sigh)

Once they found the pot of gold, J had to read each coin if she wanted to keep it.  B decided to join in and started reading off letters that he knew so he could keep some too.  The words she missed on the first try went back in the pot and then she was able to try again to keep them.  After collecting their coins we came downstairs and I had her figure out how much money her gold coins were worth.  I had made a key for how much each word was worth with values from $0-$10.  I had her locate the words on the key and then type the value into the calculator to tally up her total.  Then I had her tally up the total of B's coins (which gave her a chance to read those words too).  Then I had her calculate how much all the coins we worth all together.  The next thing we did was arrange them into piles of 2 letter words, 3 letter words, 4 letter words and 5 letter words and she recorded how many coins were in each category and identified fewest, most, etc.  I just kept making her think of them in different ways.  The last activity we did was a page of mystery addition that I made up.  I wrote equations like have+said=   and she had to use the key that listed each words value to figure out the true equation and get the answer...so there was a lot of reinforcement with using the sight words as well as math going on....and there was NO COMPLAINING!!!!  that was nice for a change...I need to make it more fun like this more often.  I was better before Christmas but then since being pregnant I was so tired the first trimester...school got kind of boring...good thing 2nd trimester is giving me some energy back to get more creative and fun with school again!

And here is my belly at 14.5 weeks....I'm finding the 3rd time around, things change a lot more quickly!!!

I LIKE Green Eggs and Ham!

Green Eggs and Ham 

or in this case bacon

What you'll need

Eggs
Ham/bacon
Blue food coloring
Bowl
Fork
Frying pan
Non-stick spray/vegetable oil
Spatula

Depending on your child's capabilities, you can let them help a lot or a little but this is a fun one for them to make

Place a frying pan on the skillet over high heat, once it gets real hot, reduce to medium heat (I do this so the eggs don't stick to the stainless steel...we don't use non-stick frying pans, they are a no no but you can read more about that at end of post).

Let your child help you crack the eggs on the edge of counter or side of bowl and carefully break the eggs into the bowl.

Let them put a few drops of blue food coloring into the bowl with the eggs.  If you have the wilton food coloring in the little jars, dip the tip of your fork in the food coloring to get just a tiny amount.  Use your fork and stir the eggs up in the bowl, mixing in the food coloring.  (if kids are going to stir the eggs, use a bigger sized bowl so prevent them from spilling over the edge)

Lightly coat the frying pan with oil or cooking spray to prevent sticking.

Pour green eggs into skillet and cook, folding and chopping with the spatula to make scrambled eggs.

When green eggs are cooked, remove from skillet and serve warm.

As for the ham part, you can either take some deli ham and cut into small pieces and stir into the eggs before cooking or you can make a side a bacon like we did.

And DON'T FORGET to read them the book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

We got our 4.5 year old Green Eggs and Ham for Christmas and I'll never forget the first time I read it to her that night.  She had no idea what she was in for when it started, and as we got into the book, her eyes widened, filled with delight and she rose up higher and higher on her knees 'till she was no longer laying down but bouncing in her bed as the story went on.  We have to read the book at LEAST two times in a row, then we have to act it out 2 times, taking turns being Sam I Am and the guy who doesn't want the Green Eggs and Ham.  Dr. Seuss has just acquired a new fan...and today she requested Green Eggs and Ham for lunch...and of course I had to be Sam I Am when serving it to her...."You do not like them so you say. Try them! Try them! And you may. Try them and you may, I say."  

I know we are not the first to do this fun activity by any means, but it was our first time and it was fun!!!  I was also thinking after the fact, that you could make this healthier by using spinach puree to color the eggs, I'll have to try that next time and see if they still like Green Eggs and Ham!

 *We have thrown out most of our non-stick cookware.  It has been banned in other countries because it is toxic and carcinogenic. When Mary Anne bought a gerbal for one of her kids, the pet store warned them not to keep the cage near the kitchen when cooking because the fumes from non-stick cookware can kill the animal.  We stick to using stainless steel and cast iron for cooking. For more about that, read my Nutrition and Healthy Cooking posts.  

Read for the Record

 

Yesterday was Read for the Record day and we happened to already have a copy of The Snowy Day, so we pulled it out and helped set the record of most people to read the same book on the same day.  Read for the Record is a campaign put on by Jumpstart to help raise awareness of the early literary crisis and raise funds for Jumpstart's yearlong early education program.  If you participated in Read for the Record, make sure to make it official by visiting the Jumpstart website and registering to be counted.