Over the past couple of days I’ve been talking to M a wee bit about St. Patrick’s Day (see what I did there? ;)). I figured it was time to introduce the wily, mischievous elf from Ireland to the boys to help get them into the St. Patrick’s Day spirit!
Last night, while the boys were busy playing with their dad, I plopped a few drops of green food colouring into their bathwater, and placed some tiny green footprints along the sink, toilet, and tub rim to implicate a pocket-sized being as the culprit. Then I closed the door to the bathroom and joined the boys.
Every so often I would stop playing and say, ‘Shhhh…. hey, did you hear that?” To which the boys would respond by looking at me like I was crazy and then go back to playing. After about the third time of doing this I finally got up and said, “I think it’s coming from the bathroom. Let’s go check it out!” When the boys opened the door to the bathroom they saw this:
The boys were really curious as to where these tiny footprints came from…
And who had turned their bathwater green?!
M was stumped; what miniature man would leave little green footprints and dye their bathwater green? After a few moments of pondering, I feigned an epiphany and exclaimed, “I know who did this! We have a leprechaun in the house!”
My emphatic declaration made M and B really excited, although they didn’t have a clue what I was referring to :). I explained to M that a leprechaun is a really tiny elf from a place called Ireland who has a hidden treasure and loves to play tricks. If you manage to capture a leprechaun you can make him tell you where his treasure is, but they are super sneaky.
After a quick dip in the water, I read M and B some books I had picked up, during our last visit to the library, to help explain a bit more about the infamous leprechaun and the holiday of St. Patrick’s Day.
Celebrations In My World: St. Patrick’s Day
This is an information book about the history of St. Patrick’s Day and how people celebrate this special day.
Clever Tom and the Leprechaun
An old Irish folk tale about a leprechaun who tricks Tom after Tom captures him and forces him to tell him where his treasure is.
The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day
A spin-off of the Christmas classic, a brother and sister get ready for St. Patrick’s Day by decorating the house and setting leprechaun traps. The next morning they discover they have caught a leprechaun in one of their traps. The children demand to know where he has buried his treasure so the leprechaun obliges. When the children go into their yard to dig up the treasure, they discover they have been tricked!
M went to bed filled with whimsy and the glimmering hope of catching a leprechaun in the morning! I really do love this age!
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As always this is AMAZING!!! Nicole, you are so gifted! Any tips around St. Patrick’s day for Grade 2’s? I have to stick to the structured day but would love to include one or two quick, easy, fun things…I have a Math Activity using Lucky Charms but that’s it so far…
Thanks Lisa! I really appreciate your kind words, especially coming from someone who I think is very creative! We did some rainbow experiments and a math graphing activity with Skittles yesterday (I’ll post that today 🙂 ). B made a simple shamrock painting today, while M worked on his leprechaun trap. He stuck some foam shamrock stickers all over a piece of paper and then painted over it with green paint (you could also make it into a colour mixing activity by having the kids mix blue and yellow together to make green). Then we peeled the stickers off to reveal the shamrock prints underneath. You could do rainbow paintings with watercolours (teach about the colours of the rainbow) and then sprinkle salt on top, while they’re still wet, for a cool effect. For word work/ shared reading you could write a paragraph about a leprechaun and leave a blank space where their spelling words would fit/ make sense. Then have the kids come up and print the missing spelling word in the blank. You could also do a shared writing activity about a leprechaun’s adventure in your grade 2 classroom (what kind of pranks he’d pull on the kids, using some of the student’s names in the story for some added fun). You could also do a quick treasure hunt, using direction words and clues. I did this with my grade 3’s one year and they LOVED it! I hid clues all around the school and we went searching together as a class. You could also just keep the treasure hunt contained in your classroom, leaving clues in a book, someone’s desk, under a chair (incorporating literacy and problem solving skills). At the end the kids can get a treasure of chocolate coins, a pencil or some stickers. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head! Hope some of these ideas are useful. Have fun!