My ancestry report says I am 34% Irish so there is the subconscious desire/obligation to celebrate St. Patrick's Day as a homeschool family every single year! The desire of our family is to learn through creating family memories. Time together is precious to us. I only have 11 more St. Patrick's day's with my oldest. I want to make the time count.
I wanted to share some of the resources that we will be using to learn on St. Patrick's Day!
Morning/Day
For Breakfast you can do something fun and easy like adding green food coloring to oatmeal or pancakes. After breakfast we will transition to our normal Bible, Math, and Language Arts and then the fun begins!
Here are some great resources that we will be using for:
Older Kids (6 + ):
Littles:
Easy DIY Decor your kids can make that you probably have supplies for:
You can also make leprechaun traps and if you have older kids, you could even do an at-home leprechaun escape room challenge!
So fun!
And of course, it's not too late to call your library and see if they have any St. Patrick's day books available! Here are some of our favorite, and ones we have been enjoying this month:
Afternoon/Evening
This is when the fun truly begins! With special occasions and milestones my kids LOVE having what we call "fancy dinner". Because my 90 year old grandparents live with us and we live rural, it is rare these days we go to a fancy restaurant. So, we bring the fancy to us!
I let the kids have absolute control over the decor from the menu design, to streamers, to place settings! It's fun to see them using their strengths, gifts, and talents to work together! I went to dollar tree and spent about $10 on cheap decor. Pair that with some construction paper and you have a themed dining room! I think it's really important to let your kids shine here. Don't be worried if the rainbow isn't the right order of colors, or the shamrock resembles more of a weird circle. This is their time to grow confidence in owning a task and making it their own! For dinner, I make sure we have 3 courses so that each child can have some one on one time with me cooking. I also let my oldest design our menu on Canva. All of these projects are such great life skills and we have more fun in the preparation than we do the actual dinner!
Here is our menu for the evening:
Corned Beef and Cabbage (Kits available at your grocery store, I don't do anything else but add carrots, cabbage, and potatoes!)
During dinner, we use fancy (plastic) cups from the dollar tree and listen to "Irish Folk Music" on Alexa. (If you don't have Alexa, use this)
After dinner, we will gather in the living room and learn how to Irish Dance and then watch the professionals!
After showers and our jammies, we will snuggle up with some popcorn and watch our favorite St. Patrick's Day movie, "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" (on Disney + or Amazon Prime)
Whatever you decide to do, make it a memory and have fun!