We had decided to not do a field trip this month. Instead we were going to take a break from our month’s theme and focus on St. Patrick’s Day.  Then everything changed.

Our joint preschool activities were canceled for social distancing. So I stayed up late one night and put together preschool by myself. Like many other parents in this difficult season, I am trying something new: home school preschool with a schoolhouse of one .

For preschool  we started with  color theory fun. Z mixed yellow and blue food dye to make green and used water syringes to color/paint a white towel. This is an easy activity we do often. It almost tie-dies the towel and it all comes off in the wash.

Next we did the same with a bin of toys with green water. Z got to hunt or fish for the green objects camouflaged in the water.

Since he enjoyed this so much, the next day we did coin soup:green water with coins in it that have to be fished out using various utensils.

We mixed blue and yellow paint and painted a four leave clover. Z was more interested in painting his hands then the clover at first. I made the best of it and did a keep sake while his hands were covered.

We also watched some youtube readings of kids books about the lore of leprechauns. Later we watched a short film about the life of St. Patrick then saw a video on the science behind rainbows.

Z then sought coins in the grass to make our own pot of gold. We took this treasure then sorted it by size and learned the names for change (don’t worry it was all sanitized the night before). We also practiced tracing the different sizes of coins.

Z helped me make our treat for the day-lucky charm rice crispy treats. Z liked looking for the leprechaun hats.

We then took time to work on his letter recognition using the letter P for St. Patrick’s day. We played letter pictionary; drawing words that start with the letter P on the whiteboard and having Z guess what they were. Then Z practiced drawing Ps on the whiteboard himself. Later we enjoyed classic “letter of the day: P” video clips from sesame street.

We also focused on the number four. We talked about four leave clovers and counted the leaves. I made construction paper four leaf clovers and wrote numbers on the back. Z hunted for the clovers then sorted them to find the clovers with the number “4”. We also looked at our sticker/activity books that teaches about numbers and counting and again enjoyed “number of the day: 4” video clips.

Z loved hunting for clovers so much that we did another activity later where I taped coins to the back of the clovers. Z used his fine motor skills to peel them off the clover. He then had to identify the type or name of the coin before being allowed to put it in his piggy bank.

When it warmed up a little we went outside. We played eye spy for everything that was green and hunted for four leaf clovers. We drew a four leaf clover, the number 4,  the letter P and sang the rainbow song as we drew a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end.

On St. Patrick’s Day we had Corn Beef and Cabbage  for dinner and Z helped me make soda bread before L got home. We were able to use that food for three days! The next day was corn beef hash, then the last was corn beef sandwiches. Grateful for leftovers in a time like this.

In what ways did you celebrate St. Patrick’s last week?