Here is a peek at what "Fun Friday" looked like in my classroom today! We celebrated St. Patrick's Day today. Another fun-filled Friday!
We started our St. Patrick's Day studies by teaming up with our 6th grade "Big Buddies." We watched this awesome little YouTube video on the origin of St. Patrick's Day. (We are a Christian school...so we are able to celebrate the REAL reason for St. Patrick's Day, in addition to the fun traditions!)
Next, we made Trinity Shamrocks with the help of our buddies.
We just LOVE our buddies!
After lunch, my teaching partner, "Leprechaun Kidd," read the kiddos this story....
(Hat... Dollar aisle at Target! Gotta love the dollar aisle! I was wearing a super cute hat too...
but of course I never get in pics because I'm behind the camera!)
Then, we made some super-cute leprechaun puppets. (Shoot! I forgot to snap a pic of these!) After that, we just happened to find a note from a leprechaun! Yep! Tiny O'Riley himself left us a note to let us know he was in the building...and planning some leprechaun shenanigans for us! We found a scavenger hunt "clue"... and began a hunt for gold! (All leprechaun poems, notes and scavenger hunt materials can be found in my "St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans" TPT packet!)
The kids LOVED it!!!! Here are a few pics of us "hunting" through the school:
(Check out our "Kinder-Gallery" display for this month above the kiddos heads. Our artist of the month was Frida Kahlo. Can you believe how incredible the kiddos bird art is?! More about "Artist of the Month," later if anyone is interested!)
Woo-Hoo! We found the rainbow....and "gold" at its end!
(My plan was to put rainbow colored Twizzlers in the bag with Rolos for gold...but guess what?? Yep... grocery store was out of them! Had to settle for "X-tremes" rainbow candy strips! It worked ok! The baggie "topper" is in my TPT unit.)
Since we were in the gym.... we played a game of "Find the Leprechaun!" I divided the munchkins into two teams...and numbered them off. (Each team had 12 kiddos...numbered 1-12.) We spread out 60 paper plates all over the gym.... Then have the kids close their eyes and face away as someone hides a leprechaun (picture of a leprechaun) under ONE of the plates. Next, I call out two numbers. (Example: "Numbers 1 and 2!") And the children with the numbers 1 and 2 on BOTH teams race out to see which team can find the leprechaun first. I love this game because you can control its pace. You can make it go slower by calling one number/student at a time.... or call multiple numbers to speed up the "finding." Again... directions and picture for this game can be found in my "St. Patrick's Shenanigans" TPT packet. 
Oh! Did I mention the random leprechaun shenanigans that occured all day?
Next, we did some "Lucky Charm Math" using this great TPT packet from "Bizzy Teaching"....
(So fun!)
We ran out of time for "Leprechaun Snacks".... Rainbow cupcakes and Leprechaun Floats. (See St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans Unit) So we skipped right to making our "Hocus Pocus Hats!" Let me tell you... these hats are incredible! I've made them a few times...and the kids freak out when they find the shrunken hats! If you haven't tried this...you HAVE to do it! Even at home with your kiddos! Heck... do it yourself just to see it even if you don't have kids! (Again... details in my TPT unit!) The way I do this is I have the kiddos decorate the hats on one day...then I take the hats home and "shrink" them... and bring them back and set them on the kids nametags again...and leave a note from the leprechauns telling how and why they shrink the hats!
These were just a few of our St. Patrick's Day Fun-Friday activities! If you are interested in any of the activities you see above, check out my St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans TPT Unit. It's on sale now! Just click on any of the above pics or links!
What do you do to celebrate St. Patty's Day?
