For a taste of Ireland with some romance and mystery True Colours delivers. This book by Vanessa Fox-O’Loughlin is an must read. With a disasterous end to her first love and a life changing move to Spain Alex Ryan is back when her father is involved in an accident. With dual purpose she is also able to take on some large accounts that the designing firm she started with a friend has in her native Ireland… one for a high up official the other… her lost love.

With a fiance to deal with on his side, and doubts and worries on hers the attraction from the past must be re-examined. Mystery, romance and interesting characters interconnected here and there by past and present experiences and traumas, this book is a colourful picture of love lost and regained.

The cover definitely doesn’t support the story, but if you can ignore it and move onto a beautiful location and interesting characters this is a great vacation read!

True Colours

So with the simplicity of a single entry for all the Platypus and Dr. Seuss resources I figure why not continue the trend? Even if it is not overly helpful to the rest of the world it means I can come back next year and either avoid repeats or recover the treasures with ease. So here goes:

Books:

• Shannon and the World’s Tallest Leprechaun by Sean Callahan
• St. Patrick’s Day by Mari C. Schuh
• The St. Patrick’s Day Shillelagh by Janet Nolan (you can find a clear dfinition and examples of some Shillelaghs HERE and pronounciation HERE.)
• Lindsay the Luck Fairy from the Rainbow Magic series by Daisy Meadows
• A Fine St. Patrick’s Day by Susan Wojciechowski
• St. Patrick’s Day by Anne Rockwell
• St. Patrick’s Day by Gail Gibbons
• Patrick Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola
• Fiona’s Luck by Teresa Bateman
• It’s St. Patrick’s Day, Dear Dragon by Margaret Hillert
• Sally Go Round the Stars by Sarah Webb and Claire Ranson (Favourite Rhymes from an Irish Childhood)
• Julie Andrews’ Treasury for all Seasons (Poems and Songs to Celebrate the Year) selected by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton
• Saint Patrick and the Peddler by Margaret Hodges (we did not pick this book up until AFTER our unit was done, but it was an amazing story with beautiful pictures)

Worksheets

• A fun leprechaun and pot of gold dot to dot HERE.
• St. Patrick’s Day themed addition, where you have to choose the two numbers out of 4 that make the sum HERE.
• St. Patrick the person worksheet HERE.
• Christian St. Patrick’s Day worksheets and crafts HERE.
• St. Patrick’s Day word problems (math) HERE.
• Story pages HERE.
• Word search with fun facts HERE.
• Numbers 1-17 dot to dot HERE.
• Rainbow maze HERE.

Crafts

• Templates for pots and shamrocks HERE.
• St. Patrick’s Day Man craft HERE.
• Leprechaun paperdolls HERE.
• Leaping Leprechaun craft HERE.
• Fingerprint Pot ‘O Gold with printable template HERE.
• How to Draw a Pot of Gold HERE.
• Maybe not for the kids, but for the crochet whizz… a Leprechaun hat thanks to CrochetSpot HERE.
• Shamrock Trinity Craft with a crash course on making something look plaid HERE.
• Fuse beads/Perler beads patterns HERE.
• Handprint rainbow HERE.
• Make a leprechaun trap HERE. We used coloured instead of plain sticks… they were cheaper!!

General Printables

• St. Patrick’s Day Fun Facts HERE.
• Irish Dancer colouring page. Trinity cut her flag away to just save the dancer HERE.
• Irish flag HERE.
• Irish bookmarks HERE.
• Little book of Irish slang HERE.
• Map of Ireland HERE.
• Irish American founding fathers (Irish men who were involved in the signing of the constitution, information and word scramble) HERE.
• The Ghillie Girls Irish dancers. We needed something all the kids could get in on and with multiple dancers this was perfect HERE.
• Design an Irish Dancer. The picture is the top left one of the page list HERE. Trinity loved this one, she made herself into a dancer!
• Colour an Irish Harp HERE.
• Colour an Irish Princess HERE.
• Colour a picture all about Hurling a sport rather specific to Ireland HERE.
• Fun themed labels for gifts by A Cupcake for the Teacher HERE.
• Celtic Mandala HERE.

Of course we had to scour youTube for some videos to fit our theme! Here is a selection! Discover Ireland Long Version by Tourism Ireland…

Riverdance for some beautiful Irish dancing… AND a Facebook link HERE of a friend and her troupe as they warm up. Sadly the music playing is live and what they were practicing to was canned music we can’t hear but still… beautiful.

Our focus also fell on Irish instruments… the Bodhran…

The Uillean…

The tin whistle…

and the Celtic Harp…

We only watched the first in the series but there are THREE videos on Hurling to watch by Cokane1888 on youTube.

For all resource links please check out the entry “Saint Patrick’s Day Resources“.

March 8-9

We started our day with slightly successful spelling tests and then jumped right into a chapter in our book and a video of Ireland!

Of course we had our St. Patrick’s Day book… St. Patrick’s Day by Anne Rockwell.

Zander and our poster item

We made THREE birthday cards using thumb prints. I think they turned out creatively cute… especially since the boys made critters instead of people!

Happy Birthday March peoples

I finished up a hat for Echo, I had to add a few rows to it and changed from a HDC to a DC but I am very pleased! It is just waiting on the yarn around the top of the brim… I have to measure out 7 lengths of the pink. You can find the pattern I used and altered HERE.

The hat

We had to run out and get my yarn to begin my big project. Coupons in hand of course… it is harder now to get out to JoAnn’s as we do not live overly close to one like we do Michaels but there is not the yarn I like at Michaels…

On our way out

We are having fun at home… and I have kept busy with baby projects. I cannot wait to measure up little Lily and make her some more pieces now that she is here and cuddle ready!

This onesie gave me a real giggle

Sadly the 9th went pear shaped with a rough night for baby and mom… no visit for me. BUT I did get in a nap, some quality bath time and booted at least some of the kids out the door for fun in the snow. Oh and the chance to sit and photograph Echo all dressed up! She is in a pretty dress phase. Enjoy!

In her boots of course

Little darling

Enjoying the flowers