Thursday, March 17, 2016

"Irish you a happy St. Patrick's Day!"

I don't get the chance to blog very much between mommin' it, homeschooling, taking a college class, teaching piano lessons, and leading praise and worship BUT I have a few minutes tonight, so here I am. Don't hold me to blogging on a regular basis, ok? I'll do my best.

We always do a little something for St. Patrick's Day. After all, my paternal ancestry is Irish. I've learned so much about St. Patrick since we started studying about him. Did you know he wasn't even from Ireland? And his birth name wasn't even Patrick? He was born in England and kidnapped by pirates who sold him as a slave in Ireland. After 6 years, he was able to escape and made it back home, where he finished school. Eventually, he felt God calling him back to Ireland--where he had been a slave--and he obeyed! He spent the rest of his life in Ireland, spreading the gospel and bringing people to Jesus.

This is a video my kiddos always enjoy watching--


So, really, St. Patrick's Day is all about the Good News--even the shamrock that some people see as a lucky charm!

We looked at a world map and talked about the distance between England and Ireland, as well as the distance between the United States and Ireland. We looked at the flag of Ireland and talked about why people associate the color green with that country. In the past, we've done some coloring sheets.



We had some fun, too! At breakfast, when I turned my back, someone turned the boys' milk green.



 
 
Then, we made Lucky Charms bar graphs. I found the graph HERE. The boys separated their marshmallows and organized them onto the graph. Afterwards, Kade did a couple of math worksheets that had him write math equations (i.e. How many hearts and shamrocks do you have? Make a math equation to show the total) and use greater than or less than signs. Luke made patterns with his marshmallows.
 

 
Then, we threw away the marshmallows.
 
 
 
HA! Yeah, right! They ate every one.
 
We had to learn about the respiratory system after that and I couldn't find a way to fit that into St. Patrick's Day, so that was the end of our St. Paddy's Day fun.
 
Oh, tonight, my mom told Kade a couple of jokes:
 
"Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Irish." "Irish, who?" "Irish you a happy St. Patrick's Day!"
 
"What do you call a piece of furniture who is Irish?" "Paddy O'Furniture"
 
Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!!