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ST PATRICK'S DAY THEME

BACKGROUND

Each March 17 people around the world celebrate the feast day of St. Patrick. But who was he? Was he just a myth dreamed up by revellers as an excuse to overindulge in food, drink, song and dance? Not at all. Patrick was born into a Romanized family in early 5th century Britain. Captured by pirates and sold as a slave when he was sixteen, Patrick ended up in Ireland working as a lowly herdsman. For six years his faith sustained him.
When he escaped, he returned to Britain where he had a vision (recorded in his still-surviving autobiography called Confessio) which called him to return to Ireland and convert its people to Christianity.
Though deeply afraid of following his spiritual calling, Patrick studied in a European monastery then left for Ireland. Despite constant threats to his life, Patrick travelled widely telling people of God’s love for them and sharing stories from Jesus’ life. Setting such an outstanding example, the entire Irish population soon embraced Patrick’s faith. Churches, schools and monasteries sprung up all over Ireland. People recognized Patrick for his humility and simplicity. For example, he used an Irish shamrock to explain the Trinity: God is one but appears in three persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Today Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland.
 

CRAFTS:

A Leprechaun Centrepiece
The kids will enjoy making these leprechauns. You  will need toilet paper or paper towel rolls, green and black construction paper, ping-pong balls, green wool or thread, scissors, glue and/or stapler, and markers. Use toilet paper or paper towel rolls for the body. Get your the kids to cover them with green paper (or paint them green at an earlier meeting). Make the leprechaun’s head from a ping-pong ball, and top it with a hat of green or black construction paper. Legs and arms are easily made from green paper circles strung on green wool or thread. Hands, feet and ears can be made from double thicknesses of construction paper (you may need to design a pattern for these) and stapled or glued to arms, legs and head. Using felt-tipped pens, give the leprechaun a mischievous face.

Coffee Filter Shamrock
Materials: coffee filter, 2 baby food jars, water, scissors, blue and yellow food coloring, 
q-tips
Instructions: Cut Coffee filter in the shape of a shamrock. Put water in two baby food jars. Add yellow food color in one jar and blue in the other. Give the children qtips and let them mix the colors on the coffee filter. You end up with a very interesting green shamrock.

Collage
Cut out a shamrock shape and have a box of green collage materials- yarn, fabric, ribbon, buttons, glitter. Add green coloring to glue and let them decorate.

Paper Plate Shamrocks
Materials: 3 paper plates, Green Crayons, Green Construction paper, glue, scissors
Instructions: Color all three paper plates green. Cut a stem from green construction paper. Glue the three paper plates together and in a triangle type shape. Then glue the stem at the bottom.

St Pat's Shamrocks
Materials: white rice, cooking oil, green food coloring, white posterboard
Instructions:
1. cut posterboard into shamrock shapes, one per child
2. pour rice into large bowl, coat lightly with oil, put in several drops of food coloring, stir until rice is green
3. let rice dry on paper towels for several hours
4. give each child a posterboard shamrock, let each child pour glue all over shamrock, then spread thin with q-tip
5. give each child a small bowl with green rice in it, let child sprinkle rice all over glue, let dry.

St. Paddy's Day Little Man Puppet
Cut a large shamrock out -- have the dck paste it on a large art stick or popsicle stick and then add the arms (with attached little shamrocks for hands) and legs (again with little shamrocks for feet)

St Pat's Ribbons
Materials: chenille stick, pom pom, glue, wiggly eyes, ribbon, feather
Instructions: I bent the glitzy chenille stick into a shamrock shape. The kids glued on the 1' pom pom. They glued on the shamrock ribbon in the back. They glued on the two eyes. Then they glued on the feather. I glued the pin in the back with glue gun.

Sparkle Shamrocks
Materials: cereal box cardboard, pinto beans, green paint, paint brushes, scissors, glue,
glitter
Instructions:
1. Cut a large shamrock shape out of your cardboard
2. Glue the pinto beans onto the shamrock
3. Let dry overnight
4. Paint Green & sprinkle with glitter

Shamrock Wands
Materials: green construction paper, scissors, glue, stapler, gold glitter, green straws,
thin ribbon in both green and gold
Instructions:
1. Cut three heart shapes from the green paper. Glue the tips of the three shapes together to form a shamrock.
2. Staple the center of the shamrock to the end of the straw to make a handle
3. Decorate the shamrock with gold glitter
4. Cut three or more 3 foot ribbons. Hold the ribbons together and staple them to the back of the shamrock at the center so that the ends hang down from the shamrock wand.
5. Cut several tiny shamrocks and staple them along the ribbons.

Shamrock People
Materials: construction paper, scissors
Instructions: Cut large shamrock shape our of green paper. Fold white paper accordian style for arms and legs. Cut small shamrocks for hands and feet. Glue at ends of accordian arms and legs. Decorate large shamrock as a face. Very Cute!

Shamrock Cutouts
cookie cutters into paint and either paint a sweatshirt or on large pieces of paper.

Shamrock Lapel Pins
Give each child three green pipe cleaners and have them form each into a shamrock petal. Twist together the ends at the centre. Leaders can add small ribbon bows and safety pins. These shamrock pins can be worn during the meeting and taken home afterwards.

GAMES & ACTIVITIES:

Coin Hunting
Scatter gold chocolate coins in yard before children arrive and have fun searching for the "luck" left by the leprechauns.

Leprechaun Mischief
While the children are out playing or before they arrive make some silly changes in the room like putting things out of place, hiding things, leaving gold chocolate coins, etc. Leave green footprints Blame it on the leprechaun when they come in. Explain all about St. Patrick's day and leprechauns.

Shamrock Hunting
Take children into back yard or a park and have them look for four leaf clover. We actually found one last year!!!--- This can be done inside as well by making construction paper clover and 1 four leaf shamrock and have the kids try and find it.

SONGS:

I'm a Little Leprechan
I'm a little leprechaun
Dressed in green,
The tiniest man
That you have ever seen.
If you ever catch me, so it's told,
I'll give you my pot of gold.

Shamrocks
Shamrocks, shamrocks,
On Ireland's hills,
Greenest of green
Over rocks and rills
Good luck do they bring,
For one and all
On St. Patrick's Day
We can see them all.

Wee Little Patrick
( tune Yankee Doodle)
Patrick is a leprechaun
He has a sack of gold
He hides it in a special place
Between two stumps, I'm told
I think I once saw Patrick
Out in the woods at play
He smiled and laughed and winked his eye
And then he ran away
Don't try to follow Patrick
To find his treasure sack
He'll twist and jump and run away
And he never will come back.
 

STORIES:

The Legend of the Leprechauns
Leprechauns are fairies who live in Ireland. They are called “the Little People” because they are so tiny they can hardly be seen by you and me. Leprechauns work very hard mending shoes for the other Irish fairies who, because they like dancing, wear out their shoes quickly. Being such hard workers, leprechauns are sometimes grumpy, but they are very rich.
Leprechauns dress in bright green suits and hats so they can hide in the meadows and forests of Ireland where they live. The people of Ireland say that if you catch a leprechaun, he’ll tell you where he has hidden his pot of gold as long as you promise to let him go.
But leprechauns are clever creatures and usually manage to get away, as you will see in this story.
Once upon a time, a long time ago in Ireland, a farmer named Sean Haggarty was walking through his fields on his way home. Sean was tired and hungry after a hard day tending his sheep; he was looking forward to his supper. As he crossed the field next to his house, he suddenly saw a movement in the tall grass.
He could hear the sound of an Irish jig coming from the spot and began to wonder if he had found a leprechaun. 
“If it is a leprechaun,” thought Sean, “maybe I can sneak up on him and catch him. If I catch him, I’m sure I can get him to tell me where his pot of gold is.” So Sean crept up on the spot and finally saw a leprechaun seated on a tiny bench hammering on a shoe! The leprechaun was about 75 mm tall and was singing and hammering so loudly that he didn’t hear Sean creep up. Sean reached out and grabbed him with both hands.
The singing and hammering stopped. A tiny voice said angrily, “Hey you! Put me down! What do you think you’re doing?” Sean could feel tapping on his fingers and gingerly opened his hands to peek at the little person he had captured. The leprechaun, dressed completely in green, glared up at him. “I said put me down!” he screamed. “Not for a while yet,” grinned Sean, sitting down on a nearby log. “Not until you tell me where your pot of gold is.”
“Pot of gold?” said the leprechaun, looking crafty, “What pot of gold is that?”
Sean laughed, “Oh, you’re not going to fool Sean Haggarty, little leprechaun. Everyone in Ireland knows that if you capture a leprechaun, he’ll tell you where his pot of gold is — if you promise to let him go.”
The leprechaun looked even more angry. “All right, all right, you win. If you promise to let me go, I’ll show you where my pot of gold is hidden,” he said. “You will?” said Sean. “Then of course I promise to let you go. But you have to show me first.”
The leprechaun sighed and pointed, “It’s over there, buried under that buttercup.”
Sean was delighted and hurriedly dumped the leprechaun on the ground. He strode over to the buttercup and looked at it carefully. “Good, good. I’ll tie my red neckerchief around the buttercup to mark the spot and go and get my shovel,” he said. “Suit yourself,” replied the leprechaun, who had already started working on his shoe again. Sean rushed home, picked up his shovel and in 10 minutes was back in the field. “Now,” he said to himself, “Where’s that red neckerchief?” He looked around the field and saw an amazing thing. Every single buttercup had a red neckerchief tied around it! “Oh no,” exclaimed Sean, “I’ll never find the pot of gold now.” And from somewhere in the distance came the sound of a leprechaun laughing.

FOOD SUGGESTIONS:

Leprechaun Pudding
one 1-ounce box of sugar free instant
pistachio pudding for every five children
1/2 cup of milk per child
1 small, resealable plastic bag per child
1/2 cup measuring cup
1 spoon per child.
Put tablespoon of pudding mix in sandwich bag and milk, then close the baggy and have kids shake and squeeze, then eat.
 

TIPS/NOTES: