St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day one and all!  We started our day by reading a wonderfully informative book about St. Patrick's Day and making a list of all the things that people do, remember, and symbols of St. Patrick's Day.

 Then we got to work making some green decorations for our preschool and for our own houses.

 We made these shamrock hand print crafts from Oriental trading that turned out super cute.  I enjoy doing more "keepsake" type items every once in a while and hope that they get saved at home.

 We also had some free explore with the finger paints as well.

 "R" was quite shocked that his hands were all green.  "What on earth could have happened?"  I think this is a great picture :)

 We made some headbands out of crepe paper to symbolize the green trees that are burned at the beginning of the year and then spread among the fields to produce a healthy soil for new plants.

 Then we headed outside to get our own Shillelaghs (tree branches) to decorate with ribbon (or yarn) just like in our book.

 Once we headed back in to work on our music skill "Music has a beat" we had way too much energy to sit down - so we marched around the room instead.

 It was a follow the leader of sorts and everyone is catching on to when we hit our sticks together.  We're working on a song called "I'm Jumping" that has defined sections of fast and slow beats and it has been a blast teaching them to tap their sticks to the beat of that song.  I hope to use it for our preschool program in May.