I really got into St. Patrick's Day about 5 years ago. We BELIEVE in all the silly people that come to visit our house during the holidays. Cupid, The Leprechaun, The Great Pumpkin as well as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It reminds me to play with my girls and to be a kid again.
Looking back through the years in pictures I realize more and more how quickly those
fun preschool age years go by and I am glad I took advantage of these fun days.
The Leprechaun is a very tricky man at our house and
visits us throughout the day, changing our food green
and leaving fun things to do and play.
Here are some of the things we have done over the years.
1. Rainbow and Shamrock Mobile
Click
here, print and cut. Tape on to yarn and hang. SIMPLE!!! SIMPLE!!!
2. Leprechaun Pots
This is a fun tradition we started several years ago. The night before St. Patrick's Day we painted pots to leave out for the Leprechaun to fill. We leave the pots at the top of our outside stairs and the Leprechaun fills the pot with gold and green things. He then hides the pot inside the house.
The girls have to follow his footprints around the house to find their pot!!
3. Green Noodle Necklace
Cook pasta with green food coloring. Let dry.
Make necklaces by putting noodles on a piece of yarn.
Cut out a bunch of shamrocks and write fun and simple things to do.
Let your toddler pick out of the pot what to do.
1. Go for a walk and find 10 things that are green.
2. Make cookies
3. Make Noodle Necklaces
4. Have a bubble gum blowing contest and buy green gum
5. Color a shamrock
6. Paint a picture of a rainbow
5. Leprechaun Hats
We cut a green piece of paper to fit their heads like a crown. Then we cut another piece of green paper to look like a flower pot. Cut a strip of black paper long enough to cover the flower pot piece. Glue onto green paper, then cut extra black pieces off to fit the shape of the flower pot. Cut a yellow square and cut a square out of it. Glue the yellow square that will look like a buckle onto the black paper. Staple the green flower pot onto the green crown and you have a hat. It is a lot less complicated then the instructions and it doesn't have to be perfect.
Let you toddler do the glueing and the cutting they will be in heaven!!
6. Green Cookies
We made peanut butter cookie dough together. I told the girls to put the dough in a ziploc bag and that we would bake them right before lunch. When it was time, I told the girls to mix their bag by squishing the cookie dough in the bag. The girls got so excited that the Leprechaun had come and made their cookies
GREEN!
7. Rainbow Paper Plates
Simply tape or staple ribbon or crepe paper on a paper plate to make a rainbow and let your toddler run wild. My daughter loved this and played with it most of the afternoon.
Here is
blog that has lots of fun other rainbow activities for toddlers!
8. St Patrick's Day Lunch
There are so many fun green foods you can make for your toddler. We had green tuna fish shamrock sandwiches, green veggies and grapes with green ranch, green cookies with green milk
and green Kool-Aid.
9. Rainbow Fruit
I am sure you have seen this on pinterest and many other blogs. But this was a lot of fun for my girls to create. It was fun for me to sit back and watch them as they pop a few in their mouth while
creating their masterpiece.
10. Green Picnic
This was probably my favorite thing the Leprechaun has done. We decided to make a picnic lunch on St. Patrick's Day last year. The girls packed orange jell-o, a clementine, shamrock sandwiches, oreos and doritos. We decided we would go to the library first and then have our picnic. When we got back to our lunches everything had turned green!
Silly Leprechaun!
11. Leprechaun Trap
Sometimes the Leprechaun likes to trap the girls in their bedroom.
12. St Patrick's Day Breakfast
We have had oatmeal with green milk and green eggs and ham, we have had green pancakes and waffles. One year while I was pregnant the Leprechaun brought us Lucky Charms and turned our milk green which was a hit!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
