California, Here I Come!

Everyday at naptime as I "tuck" each child in, I sing a song of their choice to them. Sometimes they sing along. Sometimes they just listen. The choice this day was "California". I sang the beginning words to the only "California" song I knew and said, "Sorry, that's the only one I know." This is the response I received:

Luck O' the Irish March 12-17

Green was the color of the week as we searched for leprechauns and tried to trick them into telling us where their gold was hidden. We listened to some Irish tunes and donned green hats to put us in the mood.

A sensory bin was filled with green peas, gold coins and nuggets, leprechauns and little black pots. We counted the coins and scooped the green peas into the pots.

Potatoes are called praties in Ireland. We "dressed" and "redressed" Mr. Pratie Head!

Green playdough was squished, rolled and cut into shapes.

Our favorite book of the week- Clever Tom and the Leprechaun: An Old Irish Tale by Linda Shute reminded us of how tricky those leprechauns are. 

The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day by Natasha Wing, gave us some ideas on how to create a leprechaun trap.

Jamie O'Rourke was tricked by a leprechaun in Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie DePaola.

We did the "Potato Hop" on potato shapes as we chanted, "One potato, two potato, three potato, four, five potato, six potato, seven potato, more!

A fun science experiment was to grow our own little leprechauns using alfalfa seeds. We decorated a cup, filled it with dirt and added the seeds. We placed them in a sunny window and watched them grow.

 

It was fun to play was "Leprechaun, leprechaun, who's got your gold?" We sat in a circle with one of us in the middle with eyes closed donning a leprechaun's hat. We passed the gold around the circle and when we chanted, "Leprechaun, leprechaun, who's got your gold?, the person in the middle had to guess who was holding the gold behind his/her back.

We had a leprechaun trap, but we were tricked! The trap was knocked over and we were left with a mess... 

We made some leprechaun ladders so it would give those tricky leprechauns something else to do besides get into mischief. We strung green beads, straws and shamrock shapes onto some lacing and hung them around the room. It seemed to work. There wasn't a mess the next day.

On Friday, the tiny green footprints led us to a map. We followed the clues through a rainbow of colors.

We found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Lucky for us- it was chocolate. YUM!