My little princess is very aware of her surroundings and the beautiful mix of cultures in this planet. Most of the time when there is a holiday celebration, she comes home after school asking for more. Well, are those request the ones that makes my life happy and easy. Why???

• My daughter trust me
• Special mother-daughter bonding time
• She LOVES to learn….(real value of education)
• I don’t have to get crazy looking for possible themes to teach her about.

As you would see, I am trying to incorporate more hands-on-activities (dictionary, kids encyclopedias, chapter books, museums, trips, etc.) and less printable units. I think this will help her to learn while creating real memories and experiences and to focus/concentrate for longer periods of time. (Ok, I am not a teacher, just a mommy who loves to learn new things with her precious daughter.)

Here is what we learned about St. Patrick’s day:

Field trip: Boston’s big parade

What was I thinking? It was kind of strange to be walking between a bunch of college students……I felt sooooo old!!!! At least I remembered  those amazing times back in college. She took her baby daughter with us (so a great mommy already!!!) and dressed-up in GREEN, of course! Sadly, we had to walk for so long; therefore, when we got to the point that everyone was walking towards (I didn’t have any idea where we were lol), the parade was gone….we got there 15 minutes late….lol…..maybe we’ll try next year!

 

Where is Ireland in the world????

We read our Atlas books and found Ireland on the map. I printed an Ireland map for her to color and paste small pictures related to Ireland like: Vikings, St. Patrick, a leprechaun, flag, etc. (If you want to make this activity, just open a blank page in Microsoft Word, Google pictures either to color or colored ones and just copy and paste them on your blank page…you can re-sized them at your convenience). The red colored map is for her to see that Ireland (green) is part of Europe (Montessori-colored: red)

 

Book: Leprechaun in late winter from the magic tree house

The magic tree house books are our favorite ones right now! A little of fantasy with real facts. The booklet is from their website. There are more activities about the book in my Pinterest board, below!

This book comes with some stickers, which mommy made into magnets manipulative for some imaginative play (before Pinky take them lol). I added a boy, girl and woman with Ireland’s traditional clothes and St. Patrick’s picture. I found these picture using Google.

 

Sensorial/Craft

Re-using/recycling those wires that hold new dolls inside the box (Pinky’s grandma had send her a beautiful Cabbage patch doll from Puerto Rico days before). We made a few bracelets and a clover. Good activity to practice concentration, patience, patterns, counting, fine motor practice, colors and be good to our environment).

 

Math

From necklaces (Dollar tree):

To: count by ten with gold coins (Now we don’t have to expend lots of money in Montessori beads. I know they aren’t beautiful but get the job done, though.)

 

I have lots of more ideas that wanted to try in my Pinterest board but I always have a problem with the holidays: The past on so fast!!!! So, I am always LATE celebrating and let’s not talk about blogging it! lol

Well, maybe next year!!!

 

 

Are you like us; always celebrating late?

First, I know this post is a little bit late since St. Patrick’s Day was last week, but I am trying to catch up with some post.

Pinky’s face was priceless when she saw the footprints around the window leaving our trap. I led her to follow them and at the end she found a “silver” (I think our Leprechaun is in a budget, lol) pot and some goodies inside (M&M’s, just a few). Also, he left his picture with a note in Spanish (maybe he’s multilingual) saying: “Jajaja pensastes que me atraparias??? No, no, no…nos veremos el proximo a~o!” (jajaja did you think you were going to catch me? NO, no, no…I’ll see you next year!). Pinky was so happy! and a little disappointed because she couldn’t catch him… lol

What is this??? Where does they go?

       Look what I found: Chocolate!!!! (her favorite!)

   Where is my Leprechaun?????

  This is not good!!! This little guy!

Of course, I’ll see you next year!!!

 

Did you catch yours?

We are having some fun with St. Patrick’s day learning about it and doing some crafts and activities. Here are two of them in case you want to do them, too!

First: Shamrock rings!!! Pretty for a princess!

What do you need?

• Milk gallon bottle cap
• Pipe cleaners
• Pom poms
• Scissors, knife
• Glue
• A princess! (the most important!)

How to do it?

• With a knife, I made a hole in the center of the bottle cap.
• Insert the pipe cleaner through the hole.
• Decoration: Took a gold pipe cleaner, twisted like a shamrock shape, pasted on the bottle cap and pasted three green pom poms.
• Let it dry (I used white glue since it was the only one I had so I had to let it dry for a longer time and it was not totally pasted….a craft glue or another kind would be better…..sorry I am not that crafty so I don’t know which glue is better)
• Enjoy your new jewelry! (We did two of them)

  

  Here is the link from where I got inspired…is from Kaboose!

 

Second: A trap for Leprechaun!

We are trying to catch our very own Leprechaun…..so we did this cutie trap…PLEASE! don’t tell him!….Pinky is expecting very anxiously to catch him…lol…She went to the kitchen while I was washing the dishes and told me with a very low voice….sssshhhh!!! mommy….I’m going to catch him!!!

Sooooo cute my little one…..and I love her innocence...IT IS PRICELESS!

What do you need?

• An empty oatmeal container.
• a carton board
• pipe cleaners (rainbow colors)
• green felt…for the shamrocks
• construction paper- green, black, yellow
• paint, scissors, glue, tape, glitter

How to do it?

• Cut a circle on the carton board, let your child have fun painting it!
• Take the green construction paper, wrapped around the oatmeal container and tape it.
• cut a rectangle from the black paper, and a little square. Cut a bigger square from the yellow paper. Wrap the black paper at the end side of the container, tape it. Then, put the yellow square over and the black square over the yellow.
• Decorate the hat around with the felt shamrocks and gold glitter.
• For the top of the hat (the container’s cap)…I cut a circle from the green paper and pasted over. With a knife, cut two holes for the pipe cleaner rainbow. After you make the rainbow, just decorate with pom poms (bush) and glitter (gold)
• For the bottom, paste the oatmeal container over the carton board.

I was trying to make a hat for Pinky but it was a bit heavy for her little head so we decided to use it as a Leprechaun trap! We put it next to the window and a sign saying: Free gold…and an arrow pointing towards the top of the hat…but if you see him…don’t tell him about our intentions! ;D 

If you need any help, let me know….I am not that good explaining myself in English!

         

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!!

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