Saint Patrick's story is actually pretty neat, especially for little boys who like a little adventure :) See, he was kidnapped by the Irish as a teenager and lived in captivity for 4 or 6 years (different sources claim different time periods) During that time he persevered in praying to God, and when he was grown he felt it was time to escape back to his home. After his successful escape he began studying to be a priest. He returned to Ireland, the place of his capture, and spent the rest of his life walking around Ireland converting people to Christianity.
St. Patrick would use a shamrock to explain the idea of the trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) to the pagans, that God was three persons in one, just as a shamrock has 3 parts but is 1 plant.
One great activity for Saint Patrick's day is to go outside, find a shamrock, and talk about God to your kids! (hopefully your snow has melted already) We were able to do this two days ago when the ground was fairly dry for once.
Inside, we did a shamrock craft in preparation for Saint Patrick's day (which is March 17th this year).
Age Range:
18 months and up
Materials: -rice
-rubbing alcohol
-green food coloring
-plastic bag
-shamrock outline traced on a piece of paper
-glue
Activity:- Combine 3/4 cup of rice in a baggie with 2TBSP of rubbing alcohol and several drops of green food coloring
- Shake and mix together (your child can do this)
- Pour rice onto wax paper or a plate to dry (takes several hours so it's best to do the first part either in the morning or the night before the craft)
- Spread glue all over the shamrock.
- Sprinkle the colored rice over the shamrock where the glue is.
- Dump off the excess and set the project aside to dry.
I gave J a little bowl of Lucky Charms cereal and first had him sort the marshmallows using the sorting printout here. I actually had a bowl of cereal to sort myself. I've found this often helps J stay focused and work more independently. Sometimes if he's doing an activity with me just sitting there next to him, he'll ask for my help more often. If I have my own activity to work on, he's fine doing this by himself. It's also a great way to teach something new since I'm basically modeling what to do (and helped a lot when we did the charting later).
After sorting the marshmallows, he graphed them using the chart here. We practiced reading the graph to find out how many marshmallows he had in each category (without actually counting), and quickly determine which category had the most and the least.
Activity:
