St. Patrick's Day Photo Booth and More!

If you want some fun, new ideas to liven up your St. Patrick's Day with your kiddos, then check this out!  You'll find photo booth props to turn your little cuties into mischievous leprechauns and much more.

You'll find writing, reading, and math activities, games, and more that help you stay focused on the standards while still letting your littles be little and celebrate this FUN holiday!

Be sure and snag this St. Pat's Day FREEBIE while you're here too!  

St. Patrick's Day STEM Lesson

St. Patrick's Day is almost here, so we thought why not turn one of our FUN activities into a STEM lesson! Our county  has put a HUGE emphasis on creating lessons that meet the STEM requirements.  (Lessons that integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).  We have even seen STEAM lessons that add the ARTS to that list of requirements.

SOOO...we have been looking at some of our science lessons that we have been tweaking over the years, and many of them fit 3 of the STEM requirements.  All we needed to do was add a component here or there and we had a TON of STEM lessons on our hands.

So here's our St. Patrick's Day plan.  We always have the kiddos work with a partner to create a Leprechaun Trap.  We either set the traps the night before St. Patrick's Day or we set them after the little guy has come and done some mischief in our room.  Since St. Patrick's Day is on a Monday this year, we plan on setting them once we see he has crashed our room.

So...the plan!

Step 1:  The kiddos will work with a partner to plan, design, and build their Leprechaun Trap using classroom materials.  (This covers the ENGINEERING portion.)  They will record their plan on the sheet below.

Step 2:  We will evaluate each other's traps and talk about what we think may or may not work.  We will use terms such as longer, shorter, heavier, lighter, materials used, 5 senses (will he smell the gold candy coins you left for him...).  This will support the ENGINEERING portion and add in the MATH and SCIENCE portions as well.

Step 3:  We will take pictures of our traps.  (This is the 1st part of the TECHNOLOGY portion.)

Step 4:  We will wait!  Will we catch a Leprechaun?

Step 5:  We will check the traps the following day.  Were some of them sprung?  Did we catch a Leprechaun?  We will discuss our traps and talk about why we think they DID or DID not work.

Step 6:  We will choose 1 or 2 trap photographs to put into an Activboard flipchart.  We will then make notes on the photo of design changes we could make that may have made the trap more effective.  (This will really hit the TECHNOLOGY part right on the money and we will revisit ALL the other components too.)

Here's the Trap Design sheet we will be using!

You can find the trap design sheet and other St. Patrick's Day goodies in our 

St. Patrick's Day Galore: Photo Booth, Games, and More! pack!

And if you need a FUN game for St. Patrick's Day, 

you might want to grab our FREE CCVC Leprechaun Leap Game!

We hope you have a great weekend and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Winner, St. Paddy's, and Great Books!

Thanks to everyone who left us a comment about our St. Paddy's Word Work pack!  The winner is Cherie! I think she MUST have the Luck 'O the Irish! :)

If you didn't win this time, we are always giving away our new packs...so we'll cross our fingers for YOU next time!

Anyhoo, we are out for the week for winter break...and I have to say...been a LITTLE bit lazy!  Ran some errands, cleaned a few piles, decorated for St. Patrick's Day, but mostly...slept in, drank a lot of coffee, caught up on TV...not EXTREMELY productive.  But that's ok every once and a while!  Plus my kiddos actually had the nasty stomach bug for 3 of those days so I HAD to stay home and not do much, right???

Here are a couple of pictures of my St. Paddy's decorating!  Pretty cute, I think!  Do you decorate for holidays?  If so, leave us a comment and share your awesome ideas!

 I think I am going to go back to Hobby Lobby and buy a Y so that it says LUCKY on my mantle!  I think it will just look better!

I had to take the bottle outside so you could see it a little better, but it normally sits on my kitchen table.

That's my dining room next.  I swear we don't drink THAT much wine (there seem to be bottles in ALL the pictures!) but we have friends that DO!  It pays to have wine drinking friends! ;)

The tree is WAY cuter in person, it looks pretty drab in the picture...but ALAS, I have an IPhone 3 and that poor baby DOES NOT have a flash...it's sad people! :)

And lastly, here are 2 new books we discovered at our latest book fair at school. I don't think either is officially a new book...just new to us.  So in case you haven't seen them either, here you go! The kiddos think these are just too funny, and I have to say, we do too!

"Swapped at birth!"  "Princess is a pig!"  Can you imagine the headlines when there is a mix-up at the palace nursery!  Can the piglet pull off being a princess?

The title says "underpants"...need I say more? ;)

Leave us a comment and let us know if you have discovered any new books lately!

Hope you are having a great week!

St. Paddy Pack, A FREEBIE, and One Lucky Irish Winner!

So we are off for the week!  Wahoo!  Who doesn't love some presidents!!! :)

I will be staying in town hanging with the fam, while Page is kickin' it old school in Disney!!  That's right...Disney!  First a week of fun.  Then the Princess 1/2 Marathon!  Gooooo Page!!!

So while chicky is out laughing, smiling, eating cotton candy and other tasty treats, poor little me has been left behind to CREATE!!!!  Seriously...I actually LOVE getting left behind sometimes.  True! ...peace and quiet...long stretches of time to make new stuff...creative juices get to flowing!  Seriously...I'm a little bit nerdy in this regard!  But I stand proud none-the-less!  NERDS UNITE!  (OK...so maybe I am still a teensy bit jealous that I'm not in Disney...but maybe Page will bring me a set of those Minnie ears or something!)

So...what have I been creating you ask.  Or maybe you are not asking, but you KNOW I am gonna tell anyways! :)

I just finished our St. Patrick's Day Word Work pack this morning.  Here's a sneak peek!

And...as always the BIG peek if you are interested!

Click any image to take you to our TPT store!

We've also bundled several of our word word packs by request!
This means 20% savings for you!

Click on any of the images to take you to our TPT store!

Here's our latest Letter Word Work Pack!

So please leave us a comment to let us know what you think about our newest St. Patrick's Day pack or any of our other packs.  Please especially leave us a comment letting us know how a pack is working for you, or what you would like for us to create.  You are our bosses! :)

We'll choose 1 LUCKY IRISH winner from the comments that are left! (No need to literally BE Irish..that would just be plain unfair!)  You'll WIN our St. Patrick's Day Word Work Pack! Wahoo!

Remember to leave your email in the comment in case you have the LUCK 'o THE IRISH!  (OK---I can't help myself with the Irish speak...I've been in this little computer room working for days...getting a little loopy in here people!)  We'll pick a winner in a couple of days!

And for those of you UNLUCKY people (clearly no Irish blood, huh?), you get a FREEBIE---because---well---we can't ALL be lucky---just ask the clerk at the gas station who sells me those BUM lottery tickets!!!  Hee!  Hee!

Happy Week!