Social Studies Sunday: Holiday

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St. Patrick's Day is just two days away, here are activities to help incorporate thematic fun before Tuesday!

Check out Kaboose for a kid friendly holiday history lesson. More suggested links to Kaboose are below.

Print shamrock cards to practice pre-writing skills.

Put together a St. Patrick's Day sensory tub. Teaching Tiny Tots provides the material list and notes for this fun activity. SMMART ideas has a Shamrock Search suggestion for practicing math skills. Amber @ I'm Just the Nanny posted a St. Patrick's Day collage idea. Skip to my Lou shares a recipe for making a batch of surprise Blarney Stones.Preschool Playbook shares this fun and messy looking project! Bet the kids love this one!

CanTeach has several songs you can incorporate into language activities such as felt boards and circle time.

Two Hearts Together share a fun Green Day Scavenger Hunt, here are her questions. See the site for more detailed instructions:

1. Find something that grows green
2. Find something in your backpack that is green
3. Find a friend who is wearing green
4. Name the character value that is green (responsibility)
5. Find one green crayon, one green colored pencil, and one green marker
6. Find a plastic item that is green
7. Find something soft that is green
8. Find something you can build with that is green
9. Find one snack item that is green
10. Find one green letter
11. Find something that is green and hard
12. Name one animal that is green
13. Where did St.Patrick’s Day originate?
14. What is the 4 leafed “lucky” plant assoctiated with St.Patrick’s Day (shamrock/clover)
15. Name the green item on Miss.Samantha ( I was wearing a green headband)
16. Name a fruit that is green
17. What two colors mixed together make green?

DLTK offers a Saint Patrick's Day Lacing Card. They also have templates for creating felt shamrocks to go with the Five Green Shamrocks poem.

Ramblings of a Crazy Woman gives a tutorial for making a fun Shamrock Suncatcher.
Cut apart the clovers in a deck of cards to practice matching or adding numbers. Set up a lucky penny hunt for your family. Hide several pennies around your home or yard for your children to find. Explain that once the pennies have been found they can be exchanged for a small treat. The catch? In order to make the penny lucky enough to "turn in to a treat" the child must give an example of why they are lucky. "I am lucky because..." This lucky hunt will reinforce for your children how to be appreciative and enjoy the many things they have.Try painting shamrocks using half of a sliced green bell pepper, as seen on Katie's Nesting Spot. She also has suggests some math activities: Lucky Shamrock Numbers and Shamrock Race, both or which work on comparative language, number recognition, and numeral writing.
mamabear's cubhouse made this fun game. It's made with baby food jar lids and spray paint. She has several ideas on how to use it.

Kaboose has another game with downloadable game board, Pot of Gold that helps teach numbers. They also have LUCKY bingo boards that can help teach larger double digit numbers. Some leprechaun printables are available there too.

Graphing the different types of charms found in the cereal Lucky Charms is another way to incorporate a math activity into holiday studies. Katie's Nesting Spot did a similar activity with conversation hearts for Valentine's Day, if you'd like to a visual to help you conceptualize the activity. Another version using Lucky Charms for grades 3-5 can be found here.

Students always enjoy this activity, in which a carnation magically changes colors overnight. You could have your child write a simple hypothesis before the experiment and keep a journal of changes to make this more involved.

Building a leprechaun trap was always a highly anticipated family project in Katie from Katie's Nesting Spot's kindergarten classroom. Here's a description of the activity.

Here's a spelling activity, that has students also identifying the word as a noun, verb, adjective, etc.

Scholastic has a free My Leprechaun Book cover printable that would be perfect for the front of a report on the history of St. Patrick's Day, the symbols of St. Patrick's Day, or as the front of a St. Patrick's Day word folder.

The History Channel has put together an informative mini site for older students with information on the history of the holiday and it's symbols and traditions that would be useful in assisting with a report on Ireland.
Michaele at Kindergarten's 3 R's shares this cute Leprechaun writing project. She also posted a recipe for yummy sounding Shamrock Milkshakes. If I had a Pot of Gold Writing Activity is a similar writing activity and could also be used with the Leprechaun book cover mention above.

If you are looking for a printable book to practice reading, try Have You Seen My Pot of Gold, by Scholastic.

Katie from Katie's Nesting Spot has done this activity with kindergartners and the students found it to be great fun. It really got them excited to write. It was also done with second graders, who had to write their own letter to the leprechaun after the visit with an emphasis on proper letter writing form.

Another writing activity that can be adapted to different grade levels and abilities that has students spreading wishes for happiness or a short limerick can be found here. Students learning to write could simple copy a good wish and more advanced students could come up with their own greeting.

Kris at JesseKate Designs shares how her family shows how lucky they are to have each other. She also provides a download for the sign. This display teaches an important life skill and writing.
Here is an early childhood appropriate unit, that includes some of the activities highlighted and also provides food ideas.

Katie at a Listmaker's Life has another food idea, her Pot O' Gold Soup would be a fun St. Patty's Day cooking project.

Michelle at Her Cup Overfloweth show us a really fun and tasty Pot o' Gold Snack.
Lisa from 5 Orange Potatoes also shares her mini unit on gold, starting with a hunt for leprechaun gold complete with a map, studying the American gold rush, and reanacting the gold rush complete with panning for gold!

abcteach has several worksheets and printables appropriate for a variety of grade levels and abilities as well as teacher helpers such as shamrock calendar numbers, a file folder game you can print in color so it's ready to go quick, a lucky leprechaun rebus story and activities, writing paper, and more all available for free.

Today's Giveaway:

Will be featured on Sunday's Life Skills Post "Dreams & Goals" later today. Please check back.

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