Our First St. Patrick's Day - the Irish flag and symbols

Last year we didn't celebrate St. Patrick's day as a Hungarian national holiday (March 15) is very close  to it. This year I decided to celebrate both with some fun activities as E. can take more.

Irish Flag

First, we talked a little about Ireland. We took a look at the Picture Atlas E. likes so much. She pointed at the flag and the capital. We also talked about what animals she could see there on the island. (I also mentioned to her that I lived there for a while but she was totally unimpressed)

Then we went on to the flag. She got excited as soon as she saw the colourful stickers. I made the flag and I found some price tag stickers in a One Euro shop.

She immediately started to do the sticking saying: - G is for green and the Os are for orange.
At first she didn't understand what she would stick on the white part of the flag. She was a little disappointed when I told her to leave it white and there would be no sticking in the middle.

Some white parts are left among the stickers so it gave us a great chance to colour that E. doesn't like that much. I made sure that she needed to practise a little sharpening too.

She was really happy when she finished colouring. I must admit I had to help her a bit.

However, she proudly stuck it on our living-room door.

St. Patrick's Day Cutting Practice via Welcome to Mummyhood

Using scissors is a new skill we've been trying to practise lately.

I had a very easy task with this: print and cut. I just needed to sit back and watch my daughter focus really hard on cutting along the lines.

Of course, we discussed what the things are in the pictures (pot of gold, rainbow, shamrock). I really hope that the book about the leprechaun (that I'd ordered via bookdepository.com with free delivery) will arrive before or on St. Patrick's Day.

Mosaic paper shamrock (via Happiness Is Homemade)

I myself drew and cut out a shamrock of cardboard that I found at home. I would have been better off with green construction paper or cardstock and a template, but the result was okay.

I also prepared cut-up pieces of all kinds of green paper (old wrapping paper, leftover construction and scrapbook paper etc). If you have an older child you can do the cutting together. Mine turns 3 in May so I decided on cutting the squares myself.

When she saw the layout she was delighted. She could stick all day.

You can also use glue stick that dries clear but I like the idea of E. using her hand muscles when squeezing the liquid glue bottle.

Final results: the left one is mine the right one is E.'s

 As in the morning we were drying Rabbit's hair (-pretend play I'll write about later) the hairdryer came handy to dry excess glue.

Before sticking them on our living-room door I turned the shamrocks upside down and trimmed off the overhanging edges.

Was it fun? ;)

More to come in the next post:

• Rainbow name puzzle
• More shamrock sticking out of heart and triangle shapes
• Book review on St. Patrick and the Leprechaun
• St. Patrick's Day Patterning