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.

Are we there yet? I am sure EVERY parent has heard this question repeated over and over again. There are days when I wonder if we will ever get to that far off “there”… Life is full of journeys: little, big and in-between. Some come to an end and some continue for the rest of your life. The true adventure is getting there… and I have to admit, some of my journeys… well I wish they were shorter.

We woke up to a ton of fresh snow on the ground and more coming down. So our morning plans went out the window in favour of the twins getting into their winter gear and working on what they are calling an igloo with a treehouse on top. I made them promise NOT to go into their igloo alone and we checked it for reinforcement. It IS very sturdy and today they realized – WARM. So the idea of an igloo working as a home is not nearly so abstract for them now!

Showing off the "treehouse" aspect

After fun outside it was back to Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day. We are focusing on some instruments today. Each of the twins picked one they were interested in (harp and fiddle) and coloured a picture of them. Then we read some information about each one I found online and wrote what they found interesting on the back of their illustration. We also watched some YouTube videos. My favourite of the two we watched has to be the fiddler. We have two more exotic instruments to learn about as well – the Bodhran and the Uilleann. The boys really enjoyed the videos for those. 

This one got Trinity and Emanuel dancing! So of course, PICTURE TIME! 

SPIN

We found some more colouring pages to share HERE and HERE. Trinity really enjoyed colouring the Irish princess and had to do TWO versions. 

We finally started our paper mache project today… glue and water and torn up newspaper is so messy! And we have kids who HATE getting dirty… so… we squished the twins’ hands in it and put Emanuel to work tearing paper strips… It was fun! Though I had forgotten how much difficulty there is in getting ALL the white glue off our hands! We made the bowl portion and the little base pieces but are going to glue those on once they are dried. You can find the project we are working on HERE. 

Getting messy

Of course there was a SECOND run out into the snow this afternoon. We have had so much come down it looked like the first time they went out! I have to admit, the igloo – rather cool! But… I think we have enough now… could someone turn it off???

IGLOO

Emanuel

I am not sure what it is about a truly snowy day but it seems to sap a lot of my energy and drive away. The world looks absolutely beautiful though with the fresh layer of white, pure snow on everything. However, I have not exactly been productive. Although it does feel safe… like we are insulated away from the world with our family together… Echo is healthy and fine in here, the boys are smart and learning well… Trinity and Emanuel adorable and Ken my hardworking soulmate… there is no depression, no PDA, no dissenting of my choice to homeschool… the world is right here and right now. Don’t get me wrong, I am on Facebook during the day… my MSN is connected (though I am slow getting to some messages) and I check my email periodically for interesting info but right now… right now the van doesn’t matter, the bread is done in the breadmaker and the house smells lovely… right now the world stands still. 

So a rather introspective day… 

So much snow!