St. Patrick's Day Fun!

Hello! I am so excited that its March! Finally! This is my favorite month to teach - my kiddos are at that point where everyone is growing by leaps and bounds both academically as well as socially and physically. Lots of high-water pants at this time of year lol! Those light bulbs are turning on daily, and its so heartwarming to hear one of my little ones say "Hey, I get it!"

Of course, it doesn't hurt that we have Spring Break in the middle of the month - let's face it, February may be the shortest month, but it feels like the longest month when you're a teacher, simply because there are no breaks! Since all the blizzards have decided to skip by us (literally, we missed the last one by 6 miles) we haven't had a break since MLK's birthday. That's a long time, especially since we've had a lot of inside recesses due to rain and low temperatures! I am ready for Spring Break!

But, first, I get to teach my favorite unit - St. Patrick's Day! I am about 1/4 Irish, and there might be a few kiddos who have a teeny tiny bit of Irish in them, but for most of my kiddos St. Patrick's Day is a nonevent in their households. This makes it so much fun to teach in the classroom! I keep it non-secular of course, but what child isn't intrigued by the idea of little men and pots of gold?

If you check out my book list on the right sidebar you'll see some of my favorite St. Paddy's Day books to read aloud. You can also get some ideas on how to host a leprechaun in your classroom from my free "How to Plan a Leprechaun Visit" pack on TPT.

Here's a peek at my St. Patrick's Day tub:

This contains everything for my St. Patrick's Day unit except for my books which I store in different tubs. In it is everything from tablecloths for the little table at our reading center, to decorations, pencils, stickers and my files. I grabbed the little pot of gold coins and green necklaces at the after-St. Patrick's Day-sales last year, so I would have it ready for this year and not have to pay full price! I also have my leprechaun trap ready to go (read more about the traps here). I also have some BragTags from imagestuff.com to give to those who complete a leprecaun trap as a homework project:

I've made some new products for St. Patrick's Day this year, which I am super excited to use in the classroom:

Here's my St. Patrick's Day ten frames from my February/March Ten Frames pack. I just love having ten frames to display on my Math wall, as well as the smaller ones to go in our math tubs. I also made a new Lucky Measuring Fun pack for more measurement practice for my kiddos - it covers measuring height and width, as well as time to the hour and 1/2 hour, graduated order and data analysis.

 Here's my  Leprechaun Sight Words Game which can be played 3 ways. My students especially love the Hide-N-Seek version! This time I will hide the little pots of gold behind different cards and the students will have to read the word on the card in order to see if the pot of gold is hidden behind it. The words I used are from the Dolch Word Lists and each card has a number on it, telling you which list it is off of. This way, when my kids play in small groups, I can choose the right list for each group, making differentiation easy!

I'm just finished printing out and laminating my "I have...Who has?" game for ai/ay words for this week since it goes perfectly with the story we are on in our Scott Foresman readers. We'll also use my "I have...Who has..?" game with CVCE words just for some review.

Whew! That's a lot isn't it?! Of course we also have my St. Patrick's Roll & Cover addition/subtraction games, as well as a St. Patrick's Day Roll & Graph to make sure we get that St. Paddy's Day theme into every part of our day lol!

Oh! and I found the cutest Jungle Animal cookies from Mother's that are white and green. I plan on buying a bag of the regular pink & white Circus Animal cookies and having that tricky leprechaun switch them out with the green ones lol! Make sure to look for a package next time you are grocery shopping!

Hope that gives you some ideas for St. Patrick's Day. Head over to Sharing Kindergarten for even more St. Patrick's Day goodness!