Irish or Not, St. Patrick's Day Celebration Is A Must!

We are fortunate to be part of a coop of very relax but awesome kids and moms whose always ready to explore and learn.  Our coop's theme revolves around Catholic Saints and I would say the Irish luck was on my side to facilitate our St. Patrick's lesson which I'm excited to share with you.
We started by reading the biography of St. Patrick and then the kids moved to various stations to do activities related to St. Patrick or Ireland.
In the second half of our class, I also read to them the "Three Brave Mice" which tells a story about the mice who helped St. Patrick get the miraculous bell back from the last snake in Ireland.

1) Senses, Food and Science
St. Patrick is usually depicted as wearing green so I used green foods for our taste test. Some are brave enough to try broccoli, green beans, peas, pickles, lettuce, spinach chips, celery sticks and pears.  The kids decided if they like or dislike the food they tasted and figure out if the food has sweet, salty, sour or bitter taste.  This was also a good chance to talk about the science behind different taste, the structure of the tongue and the functions of tongue for other animals beside to taste.
Taste Test Chart

For those who opt out from the taste test, I also provided the kids with various fruits which color correspond to the colors of the rainbow.   The kids made some "rainbow Kebob" or "snake Kebob" since one of  the most popular legend about St.Patrick is that he drove away the snakes from Ireland using a miraculous bell. One of the mom also shared her experience when she was in Ireland that she actually saw three rainbows in one day.  I used this opportunity to review the colors of the rainbow and the kids enjoyed making rainbow patterns with their fruits, or making a snake design with the fruits in a skewer.

2) Painting with marshmallows and Creating a paper snake
The children showed their creativity by making St. Patrick day cards using mini- marshmallows for painting. Everyone enjoyed this activity even my 4yo son who doesn't really like doing art projects.   Marshmallow painting not only promotes creativity but also helps in the development of fine motor skills.

I also printed some Irish blessings that they put inside their cards.  If time permits, kids can also try to make their own Irish blessing that they can put inside their cards.

Another art project that the kids enjoyed making was creating a paper snake using colored construction papers.  The kids decided what pattern to use in their snake body and some didn't follow any pattern at all. It doesn't matter how they design their snakes, or what patter they used, the results are some colorful paper snakes or in one case, a dragon snake.

3) The kids practice sorting, counting and graphing using 'Lucky Charms' cereals.  This is a fun and yummy way to develop some math skills.
Lucky Charm Sorting Mat
Lucky Charm Graphing and Measuring

4) Milky and Gooey Science
One of the mom volunteered to share this experiment where the kids had a chance to observe surface tension of a liquid.  Still tying it with St. Patrick day, she used the blue and yellow color to review how to make color green (the color associated with St. Patrick) by mixing up blue and yellow,  and she also added red food color to teach them that cardinals usually wear red (St. Patrick was a bishop when he returned to Ireland to convert the people to Christianity). Then using s q-tip coated with oil, the kids observed how surface tension is broken when oil touches the milk surface and the food colors spread away from the oil.

The kids also made some green slime (or whatever color that the kids want) by mixing white glue, food color and borax water.  They just enjoyed seeing the glue clumped together into a slime and squeezed the goo with their hands which is a very good sensory activity and play.
Green Slime Recipe with Borax

5)  To cap our lesson, moms and children played  hot potatoes as we sing a song made by one of the mom that explains how St. Patrick used shamrock to teach the Irish people about the Holy Trinity.  Almost everyone got a chance to toss the 'hot potato' around and didn't even mind to be the 'it'.

Check out one of our coop mom's blogspot for more ideas on St. Patrick's day.  You can also find here the song we sing about the Holy Trinity while we play hot potato.
Holy Trinity Song (in the tune of "I'm a Little Tea Pot")

We were not able to finish everything that I planned for the coop class (which is the only expected thing to happen if you work with children) but the smiles in their faces is enough to feel accomplished and blessed for such a great St. Patrick day celebration.