School Time Adventures

On the back of 9 photos I taped on a lucky shamrock and then duck taped them to various locations outside. The last clue had a 4-leaf clover whereas the rest just had 3 to let them know (River and a few friends) that they are getting so close to find the gold at the end of the rainbow!

The kids had a lot of fun running around to the different spots, finding the new photo clue, and then running to get the gold under the rainbow. I loved that River held his Leprechaun mask with his hand the whole time, to make sure it wouldn't fall off! I think a photo treasure hunt is so perfect for this age.

After he ate the gold we headed inside to make some green milk and eat green apples.

We were also lucky enough to go play at the children museum, since today was a free admission day!


We hung out in the building area the longest. Little Rue loved pushing the blocks around to Mr. Bob the Builder. She was being so cute, but unfortunately I didn't capture all those moments. (River had to have a hat in order to be a real builder, so I guess he was a fake builder for about 20mins until some kid left the hat on the ground.)

Oh, we also danced all night to the Pandora "Riverdance Station". My husband came home and heard a random commercial in the middle of some great fiddling and was like "Say what?"

I'm sure all moms/educators can attest to feeling a little disappointed when their wonderful idea didn't materialize quite the way they expected. This pot of gold idea I came up with would be better for children who are a little older, who have the patience to collage a whole yogurt container! River did a great job painting it green and then his interest waned.

However, he did great putting the black pieces on the lid! I think it was easier to have a smaller space to cover. Then we cut a small paper plate in half and he loved drawing on the different colors of the rainbow.

 I'm glad this project is done because the real fun is going to happen once he is a leprechaun looking for his pot that was mysteriously filled with gold. I love planning treasure hunts and have always wanted to do a photo hunt. The community we live in has a park so I am going to hide the picture clues at the different locations....here are some of our places:




I hope you are all ready for the fun tomorrow! Make sure you wear green to avoid a pinch or two!

We started school time by playing musical letters, our own variation :) We put the Amazing Action Alphabet CD on and put out all the laminated letters (the ones found in the back on the activity book). As soon as a letter song comes on River runs around tying to find the correct letter the song is about. Once he finds it he sits in my lap and uses his finger to trace the letter. We did about 13 letters today ending with G the Goose Giggles.

The corresponding story with the letter G introduces some new words, so we talked about giggled, gecko, and grazing goat. We looked at pics on-line on of the gecko, gorilla, gumdrops, and grazing goat as I read the story. (If you are actually one of those people who has a working printer and don't need to rotate between your neighbor's to print stuff off, then I would suggest printing off the pictures instead of just looking at them :)

Since we are also focusing on St. Patrick's Day this week I wanted River to see a "real life" leprechaun so we watched this clip of "Darby O' Gill and the Little People". As a child I loved this movie, watching the little people dance around a pot of gold. However, I hated the grim reaper and the lightening horses. (It's nice to have YouTube so you can watch specific clips, without fast forwarding a VHS tape.)

We also made some 4 leaf clovers and a pot of gold with a rainbow attached which we will post more about later. This is our cute finger play song for the week. I adapted it from the Insy, Wensy, Spider:

A small little Leprechaun
came out to play
To look for gold on this St. Patrick's Day
Under the Rainbow
is the spot he was told
With a jump, and a kick he ran toward the gold

*For imaginative story time use the following items: leprechaun, gold coins, green hat, clovers, etc.

*Dance around to irish music while doing jigs.

Double Play by Liz Carroll and Jon Doyle (great fiddling)
25 Best Celtic Favorites by Madsey Entertainment (great variety of Classic Irish Favorites, with singing and without)
Celtic Dreamland by Putumayo Kids (the music was really slow, not good to dance around to)
Pandora music station-
Riverdance and Lord of the Dance films and soundtracks

*I will have a little leprechaun print out to use if you would like. Also I hear that cutting a green pepper in half and dipping it in paint, using it as a stamper, adding on the stem, makes fun clovers.

* The Letter G, is G the Goose Giggles. So we will paint the goose green and gold, and play duck-duck-goose. Our word list will include green, gold, goodies, giggles, goofy, grazing, gobbled (taken from the Letter G story on the back of the flipchart.) I don't think I will use the Letter G activity found in the Activity Book.

*The # 4 will be the number this week. Using 2,3, or 4 leaf clovers have the children decide which are the lucky 4 leaf clovers. (Hint: I hear using hearts as your clover outline works well)

There will be additional posted ideas from other group members. So this should be a really fun week with the letter G, being incorporated in with St. Patty's Day!!)

I have wanted to do a sensory tub for a long time but never got around to it, so when I thought of River digging around trying to find lucky gold coins I was excited to make it happen. Here is the idea, from No Time For Flashcards. We went to my favorite store, the Dollar Tree to get the tub w/a lid and a package of various magnifying glasses. Then to Smith's to get the green split peas. We already had the gold coins, black beans, and white beans, and fun kitchen slotted spoons, measuring cups, etc.

He has loved digging around, using many measuring cups, and pouring back and forth into different bowls!! It is a bit messy so I make him do it at the table, and then inevitably we have to sweep up, before little Rue becomes the floor vacuum cleaner!
This has also been a great activity to incorporate math: 2 small (1/4) cups = 1 big (1/2) cup, counting out the coins and putting them into addition and subtraction patterns (we have a total of 12 coins), and sorting out out the sizes of the different beans/peas.