Pre-K March 15, 2012 St. Patrick's Day!!

Today was great fun!!  We celebrated St. Patrick's Day and all things green.

Books:
Tweedle Dee Dee by Charlotte Voake.  In the woods there is a tree. And on the tree there is a branch. And on the branch there is a nest. And in the nest there is a bird.  And under the bird there are some eggs. And in the eggs are some baby birds.  And the green grass grows all around. 

I read this book while using some flannel pieces (thanks to the help of my good friend Lesley).  Before reading the book, we passed some green leaves out to the children with an illustration and a word from the book.  When they heard their word in the story, they help up their leaves.  The words were: birds, tree, eggs, branch, and nest. 

http://www.candlewick.com/book_files/ReadToUs_StoryHourKit.pdf

Good Luck Bear by Greg Foley.  When bear's friend Mouse tells him that finding a four leaf clover means one is lucky, the little bear searches for one.

Music:  We did the "Beanie Bag Dance" with some beanbags.  We danced while balancing the beanbags on our bodies and ended with the beanie bag toss!  (Sorry, CD not in our collection)

Letter of the Day: Gg for green

Game: I'm Thinking of Something Green.
The children guessed what green things we were thinking of based on our clues.

Movement:  We then discussed leprechauns and shamrocks and then did the "Leprechaun Leap" with some foam shamrocks.

Leprechauns jump forward and backwards
Forward and backwards
Forward and backwards
On Saint Patrick's Day

(they do lots of other stuff too like jump really high and spin around)

Now, for the magic....

Each child had a shamrock with a letter (A-D) on it.  I do this to prevent 40 kids from running up at once.  They held onto their shamrocks while I produced a large, magical cauldron.  I threw some rainbow in (streamers) and we said some magic words, but nothing magical happened....until we put our shamrocks in.  Groups A, B, C, and D put their shamrocks in and then we said the most magical, shamrocky phrase: Shazzle Dazzle! 

Much to our amazement, I pulled a SACK OF GOLD out of the cauldron.  The children followed the leprechaun footprints on the ground to form a line and each child got a piece of gold to take with them.