Ready, Set, Kindergarten! — St. Patrick’s Day & Rainbows

To start, I went over our mobile classroom items of the week (Color: Green [of course!]; Shape: Shamrock; Letter: F; Number: 17. I made the shamrock shape card using Canva and clipart. The number card is from This Reading Mama. Our concept of the week was fine motor skills. Unfortunately, the center designed to work on this skill wasn’t used by any of the kids. More on that later …

Then we started circle time:

Song: Days of the Week (to the tune of The Addams Family)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
There’s Sunday and there’s Monday,
There’s Tuesday and there’s Wednesday,
There’s Thursday and there’s Friday,
And then there’s Saturday.
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
Source: Ms. Brown’s Classroom

We looked at our calendar and discussed what day of the week it was, what month we were in, and what day of the month it was. Then we moved on to the weather:

Song: What’s the Weather? (to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine)
What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it sunny? Is it windy?
Is it rainy? Is it cold?

What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it snowy? Is it cloudy?
Is it stormy? Is it hot?
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/460563499387764713/

Then it was time for our theme discussion. 

Non-Fiction Book: St. Patrick’s Day by Gail Gibbons.

This book does talk a bit about religion but it’s hard to talk about St. Patrick without religion! It’s done in a respectful way without making it seem like Catholicism is the “right” way. Then I read our fiction book:

Fiction Book: How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace; pictures by Andy Elkerton

I love this rhyming book about a mischievous leprechaun who avoids all of the elaborate traps kids have set out for him. It tied directly into our most popular center this week …

Then we talked about the letter of the week. We talked about the sound F makes and some words that start with F.

Then I read our letter F book: Sylvie by Jennifer Sattler.

Sylvie discovers that whatever she eats changes her feather colors! It ends with Sylvie keeping her rainbow tail which tied nicely into our theme.

When we were done with books, we conducted a little Skittle rainbow experiment. I found this experiment at The Inspiration Edit. This is a super common experiment so you can find it on a lot of different blogs. I read some that said you needed warm water but we used room temperature (and it was from a water fountain so it might have been a touch cold) and the experiment worked out just fine so I wouldn’t worry too much about water temp.

The kids made a circle of Skittles around their plates (I brought these plates in from home) and then added just enough water to fill the plate. We waited a few (nerve wracking — I hadn’t tested out this experiment first and that’s burned me in the past!) seconds and then all of a sudden they had a creeping, tie dye-looking rainbow! It was super fun. I had to have the kids double up on plates but they took sharing very well.

Then we did our letter F craft. This is the same letter we did two years ago for our annual alphabet project.

Then I reviewed the different stations I had set up. I’ll go through all the stations here but the kids really concentrated on one single station. I’m not even sure any other center was touched (aside from a stray kid or two) to tell you the truth! But they had a blast so I can’t complain. 🙂 I made all the signs in Canva.

I forgot to take a picture of our super cute writing tray this week! I put in a laminated rainbow lining that I made in Canva and filled it with green sparkly sprinkles.

We used the same green play-doh we had leftover from our dinosaur Ready, Set, Kindergarten! program. I found the alphabet and counting mats at Oriental Trading.

I did something a little different with our letter tubs this week. I mixed up everything from the D, E, and F tubs and had the kids sort everything back into the correct tub. I’ll have to do this again since, again, I’m not sure many kids took part in the activity this week.

The fence came from my son’s Duplo collection. I found the rainbow flag in Target’s amazing Dollar Spot. The fish and frog came from sets I found at Dollar Tree. The flower is from the library’s Duplo collection. I found the flip flop and football in random places in the library’s supply closet when I was ferreting for alphabet tub additions. The foam letters came from puzzles I found at Dollar Tree. I created the tub labels in Canva.

I got this idea from My Home Based Life. I got the tweezers and little plastic bowls at Dollar Tree. I created the cards using clipart and Canva.

I got this idea from Splish Splash Splatter. Instead of providing them with cut squares I wanted them to practice their fine motor skills by tearing the paper into little pieces and then gluing it on.

I got this puzzle from Totschooling. I printed it out onto card stock and laminated it. Easy peasy!

And last but CERTAINLY not least …

As you can see from the picture I put out a huge variety of craft materials and had the kids make their own leprechaun trap. This was a HUGE HIT! I highly recommend this project. Like I said above, I could have saved myself a huge amount of time and trouble and just done this station and nothing else. Next year, I think we’ll do this and a book or two as a separate program with registration. Done and done.

I found gold coins and glittery shamrocks at Dollar Tree. I Google’d leprechaun traps and printed out some examples for the kids that I taped to the wall. And the cardboard trays on the bottom right came from my personal chewy.com cat food orders. 🙂 The white trays fit into the brown trays perfectly so made a fantastic trap. I’ll have to save them for next year too. The other supplies were pulled from the library’s stores. I can’t say enough good things. It was so much fun and a great STEM project to boot!

I forgot to take a picture but as the kids were working on their traps I cut up and set out a little snack of Irish soda bread for them (I bought it at Trader Joe’s). Some of the kids really liked it, others weren’t so impressed. But it was really fun to have a themed snack and it’s something I’ll definitely think about including again in future sessions.

Our session summary:

I also handed out a letter/number of the week worksheet for them to color at home and practice their writing. I got the letter worksheet from Easy Peasy Learners and the number worksheet from The Measured Mom. And lastly as homework I sent home a themed color by number I found at Totschooling.

Next up: the Five Senses!