Hosting a St. Patrick's Day Play Date

I hosted a St. Patrick's Day Play Date for my daughter and two of little girl friends the day before St. Patrick's Day. I'm going to post a bit on the set up, food, and activities.

This was how I had the food out on the counter. For drinks I had Honest Kids organic Appley Ever After Juice. I picked this flavor because it had a green part on the drink. Then we had a cookie cake, "rainbow" parfaits, and spinach four leaf clover tortilla chips. The other mom brought over hummus with a green lid for dip! I also had gold coins sprinkled about for decor.

The "rainbow" parfaits were made with dairy free coconut milk yogurt, and food coloring. I didn't have red or yellow to make red, orange, or yellow. So I used pink, green, blue, ad purple. I scooped some yogurt into 4 different bowls, added some food coloring to each one and stirred each up separately. Then I added a bit of each color, starting with purple into the clear little serving cups. I also had 3 green spoons for the kids to each have one with them!


Now, for the spinach four leaf clover tortilla chips, I will refer you to this recipe


For decor I had this leprechaun taped up to the wall that I purchased at Dollar Tree. I also had green flowers on the table, clover and leprechaun decals on the window, and magnetic clovers and a leprechaun on the fridge. All (except the flowers) purchased at Dollar Tree.

For the activities, we made necklaces, made Shamrock Man, and played bingo 

For the necklaces I dyed some uncooked pasta noodles green, and cut some shamrocks out of green construction paper that I then punched holes in so they would be able to be strung along with the noodles. To dye the pasta noodles I put them in a ziploc bag, then added in some rubbing alcohol and shook it all up until the noodles were all coated, then did the same with green food coloring. Once they were all colored I put them on a foil covered baking sheet to dry. 

I had my daughter do her necklace in a pattern of two noodles, then a shamrock. 

St. Patrick's Craft

I love this craft I made with my daughter the other day! It is so cute and gets kids in the holiday mood for St. Patrick's Day!

For this craft you need washable tempera paint in all the colors of the rainbow, and black for the pot of gold. Then you need gold glitter glue, construction paper (I used gray so all the colors of paint would show up). I also used a sticker of a leprechaun that came in a pack from Dollar Tree, as well as a circle sponge paint brush.

First, paint the black pot on the paper, or have your child do it. Then instruct them to dip the circle sponge paint brush into each color, one by one (you'll have to rinse it in between) and then put them in arching rows like a rainbow coming out of the pot.

After that the black pot should be pretty much dry, and your child can use the gold glitter glue to top the pot off with! Then the sticker can be added as well if you have one.

St. Patrick's Day Word Wall

As always, we do a word wall for the upcoming holiday, and in this case that is St. Patrick's Day.

I think it turned out pretty cute, although I am in no way a good shamrock drawer! I tried for my daughter though, but the most important part is the literacy aspect and learning the words, being in a print rich environment, etc.

I wrote the words on index cards with a green Sharpie:
- gold
- Irish
- St. Patrick
- shamrock
- green
- Blarney stone
- jig
- rainbow
- trifolium
- clover
- pot of gold
- luck
- harp
- march
- leprechaun

Then I used a different green marker to draw/color a shamrock on each card, and used other markers to make a rainbow on the "rainbow" card.

St. Patrick's Day Rainbow Sensory Bin

Everything needed for this bin (except the super cute shamrock care bear, we've had that for years) can be found at Dollar Tree. As for the addition of a St Patrick's day stuffed animal I'm sure you could find a Beanie Baby of something of the sort. All you need is a pack of construction paper, and some gold coins. 

Just rip up the construction paper (one piece per color of the rainbow) into squares and arrange them in a row in a sensory bin. Add in the stuffed animal or whatever you're putting in the middle of your bin, and then place some gold coins around it.

St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin

This is really easy to throw together if you've got green colored rice on hand, if not I'm adding how to make it, and it's still pretty easy all in all. Basically just put the green colored rice into a sensory bin, we used a green bowl from Dollar Tree to keep with the green theme, then add in whatever little trinkets you have. We weren't able to go to Dollar Tree and gather up any new materials for thia one, so we made due with what we had. Ours turned out like this:

To make the green rice just put some uncooked white rice into a Ziploc bag and add a few drops of vinegar. Coat the rice with the vinegar by moving them around with your fingers from outside of the bag. Then add a few drops of neon green food coloring into the bag and do the same thing to coat the rice with color. Add more food coloring until you get the desired color. You can just let it dry in the bag, or lay the colored rice out on a piece of foil to dry.