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 13-14

While I do not have a spring break with the kids schoolwise, it WAS school break this week for the Novak boys. What to do what to do? Well, we pushed on through and got our schoolwork accomplished in the morning so that we could instead spend the afternoon enjoying their company! Starting at McDonald’s with lunch! 9 kids, Darcy, myself and KEN! We thought someone may have even tried to take a picture but it is hard to tell with a cell phone (iPhone). We always get such strange looks like Ken must be the father to all the kids and with both of us! So much fun though. And not half bad food.

Double Date with the big boys

Then back to our house (for the first time in years for the Novaks… I really wish Andy could have had the day off… but we are very lucky to have days when Ken works from home.). After all, there was new coverage to watch while the Catholic Church announced their new Pope (no we are NOT Catholic but history was made anyway and well worth watching and discussing with Anthony and Andrew… first non- European Pope after all).

Sitting on burgers

Ken loaded up what electronics could run Minecraft and let the big boys go with it.

Watching Anthony (Zander)

The other kids played outside, played in the 3 seasons porch, with the bug set…

Emanuel and Aidan

Monopoly…

Trinity and Alex

They really did keep busy and no one was excited to leave when they had to go to to get Andrew to his appointment.

We did manage a few completions… our book of the day was Fiona’s Luck by Teresa Bateman.

Fiona’s Luck

Thursday was back to full days… or at least that was the plan. Until the weather worked miracles and the snow, I am told, was perfect for playing in. So we did a 3/4 day and the 4 big kids had their fun in the sun. This was not so nice on the roads in the morning or the potential for ice in the evening but for the kids – PERFECT!

Up the tree

In the backyard

We finished our hand print rainbow. I was so proud of the kids. I did nothing but show them the picture and trace out Trinity’s hand… they did the rest! 4 hands traced for patterns, colours dealt with AND assembled! We did not have that much orange paper around so we had to make do. I am very happy with the end result!

Rainbow… esque?

It really was a crafting day with Perler beads the central focus. After all, we had to make some St. Patrick’s Day themed pieces.

We are pretty well ready for poster assembly. Though we had a book to cover too: It’s St. Patrick’s Day, Dear Dragon by Margaret Hillert

The book

Sunshine, snow and St. Patrick’s Day studies… not bad not bad!

Reading to the ponies

October 19-20

As has become our pattern with the dinosaurs today was NOT a new dinosaur day, instead Emanuel and I sorted through the dinosaurs we have already learned about and picked out our current carnivores! He is still not to firm on the names of some of them but has started to recognize what characteristics mean that a dinosaur eats plants or meat. 

Brilliant Meat eaters!

We finished our Minnesota library book and the boys and I talked about things we know about Minnesota to add to our book. I personally find it interesting that we moved from a country that has a coin called a Loonie to a place where the state bird is the Loon! 

After Minnesota reading tv time

We beaded it up Halloween style for the most part. Echo is really interested in Perler Beads but she just does not have the concentration or the ability. I am thinking we may need to look into Biggie Beads for her. 

Gavin and his non Halloween piece

Oh AND Emanuel and Trinity FINALLY got their 25 checkmarks ice cream… They actually have more than that now but this was our first chance to get out to McDonalds with just the two of them and have ICE CREAM! Then they were along for the present shopping ride at the nearby Target for the birthday party. I am so proud of these two. Emanuel practiced his printing and Trinity WILLINGLY did workpages…  

YUM!

I have begun my Christmas list. This is a tricky one, there are people back in Canada to send to that need to be light and easy to ship and the people here in the US that we can be a little more creative with. I am thinking owls and other creative measures will be best but first there is the list of names and then matching creations to the people.

Saturday was a birthday party and the same indoor playground we visited on our LAST visit here 3 years ago! Echo did pretty much the same repetitive stuff I remember helping and watching Trinity do that last visit! Miss Trinity herself opted to play in the little guy area with her sister (even though it was rated at 3 and under) and I really have NO idea what the boys did as they ran right in and played until we called them out for food or they had to go bathroom. 

Meeting random kids

A book nook

The boys were up there somewhere!

There was pizza and yogurt and juice and water for lunch… And a cupcake cake for desert! There were TWO birthday boys – our family friend Nathan and his friend Matthew. Nathan is Christopher and Renee’s son (they have a younger boy named Evan who is right around Echo’s age).  After presents there was time for a little more play. I think they all had a blast, the birthday boy liked his gift from us and the kids were very pleased with their gift bags. We are hoping that in the near future we can have a quieter visit though are waiting for Christopher’s hand to heal before we plan anything major. 

Quite the group!

The cake!

Happy Birthday!

So the kids made new friends, played hard and had a GREAT day. Success!

Out from behind the camera briefly