St. Patrick's Day a Multiple Intelligence Way

We've spent the month of March talking about how Spring is coming and the holiday, St. Patrick's Day. Along with a few original stories associated with the holiday, I put my own twist on the holiday and explained to Em the Leprechauns help bring Spring. The day finally arrived and what fun we had!

We woke up to a display of our day's activities. I intentionally didn't want candy associated with this day. Candy seems to be associated with every holiday....she even looked around for some :) This leprechaun only left healthy and fun treats though.  

 Here is a letter our Leprechaun left Em(linguistic intelligence)

Here are the leprechaun's healthy GREEN snacks she likes to eat,

The juice, Em actually loves this too:)  "It tastes like apple juice" is what she said when she first sampled it at Trader Joes.

The gold,

And a game board to help Em find the gold our leprechaun made. I adapted this game from one of my favorite blogs, No Time for Flashcards.

This game became a big part of our day, and the next morning. Her logical-mathematical, naturalist,bodily- kinesthetic, and spatial skills are all at work here. She immediately wanted to hunt for the gold.

To make the game board is very simple. Find a piece of paper or cardstock to use as the game board. Label the board with whatever you decide to call the game. Then use one coin to trace multiple circles. I chose to draw 15 circles. Em has been leaving the number 15 out while she counts. I used this game as an opportunity to exercise this important number. (When you are making your decision just think about where your child(ren) are in counting skills. If your child is still mastering 1-10, stop there. If you need to count higher, than do so). I intentionally didn't label the board with numbers, YET. I did this because I wanted to model number writing with Em. Since I had to pre-make the board the night before, she wouldn't have seen this important modeling. 

As she placed the gold on the board she started counting. 

 Look at that one-to one correspondence in action!

We continued playing this game. First, I hid the gold and she found it. Next, she hid the gold and I found it. To exercise our intrapersonal intelligence,  we dressed up in leprechaun clothes when we were the one's hiding the gold. I believe when a child dresses up or plays make-believe, their self- intelligence is being developed. We kept the hunt inside because it was mighty cold and wet outside. Even inside, her naturalist and spatial skills were still at work. The hunt was focused to two rooms of the house: the kitchen and the living room.  I thought the whole house was to large of an environment for our first scavenger hunt. She really had a good practice with perseverance and  her under, behind, in, and above observation skills. 

All sorts of counting(logical mathematical intelligence) was happening as we played the game: How many have you found? How many more do you need to find? When she found big piles she'd count each one, then say I found four. I loved hearing all the math language she was using!! We had to stop playing to get ready for school, but our afternoon continued with rainbow painting!( More to come below)

The next morning we added the numbers to the game board. Em dictated each number while I wrote. We when got to 12, she lost track. This is a great opportunity to teach the count-on skill. I went back and pointed at the number 10 and said "ten". This got her going. I pointed at 11, she said "eleven". I pointed at 12, she said, "twelve, THIRTEEN!" She was so excited she remembered. We actually had to repeat this again for 14, and 15.  Parents, this is why I love playing games. It gives you the opportunity to assess your child's needs in the moment and teach from there. I call this experiential learning! 

  

Our Rainbow paint afternoon!

The supplies needed:

The recipe:

I discovered I needed more water! Also, while the mixture is cooking, a wooden spoon works way better for mixing than a plastic spoon. When the mixture is smooth and slighty thick, it is done. After you cook it, if it looks like this put more water in!

 Don't make my mistake :) Mine was too thick and started hardening in the yogurt containers

(I love using recycled yogurt containers for painting projects.)

We went to work exercising our spatial, logical-mathematical, and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences, with some color mixing.

Making orange. Emery did the dropping. I instructed her with how many drops. For example for orange, I stated," Put three drops yellow, two drops red." Please adapt this to what your child(ren) developmental levels are....meaning you may need to do all the prep and just let them paint. 

The end results! I could tell the paint still wasn't quite the right consistency. I once again added water.

Can you tell a difference in the two paints? The bottom is before more water.It is too thick! Also, please notice our work station. I had plenty of paper towels around. I laid out the rainbow cards we made on a previous day. This helped Em recall the order of a rainbow.

The next photo is of a  very important tool. It is a paint knife. We used it for stirring. The paint quickly wiped off when we had to make a new color. If you don't have a paint knife, popsicle sticks would work as a stir stick. Just use a new stick for each color.

When our paint was all cool, Em started painting. I had told her we needed to make Lucy the Leprechaun a thank you card for the gifts and fun ideas! The point of this was to exercise her interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence. Here is her card and mailing envelope.

&, of course throughout the day we were working our musical intelligence with the following tune:

Feeling Lucky,

M.I. MaMa

The Leprechauns are Marching

This month we have been reciting the following poems/songs. Em really enjoys them. I used these two poems while teaching Kindergarten. Currently, they are hanging on the fridge.  Poems and songs are a great tool for building linguistic and musical intelligences. 

This poem is from Maurice Sendak's book Chicken Soup with Rice. It is a fabulous book for introducing calendar months to children. I introduce each month's poem on the first day of the month.

Hope you enjoy,
M.I. MaMa

Marshmallow Day

MARSHMALLOWS!!!I was inspired by the cutest craft I saw on one of my favorite blogs I follow. First, we made the shamrock craft. You'll notice it in the bottom left hand side of the picture. You can find detailed instructions for this craft at http://www.notimeforflashcards
.com/2011/03/st-patricks-day-crafts-old-favorites.html

We kept the fun going by making our own green marshmallows. I got out a mixing bowl, mixing spoon, food coloring, and white marshmallows. Em placed them in the bowl and then started squeezing the green food coloring. We discovered it was empty. Ah-ha, what a great moment to further discuss yellow and blue making green. When I asked her if she remembered which two colors make green, she only remembered blue. So the review is needed :)

 She made a nice dark green. I love color mixing because it provides a great opportunity for kids to experience the many different shades of colors.

The End...Lots and lots of marshmallows.

When done, we poured them on to newspaper for drying purposes. I reminded her many times these ones are not for eating! We will be doing a craft project with them tomorrow.

All sticky and green,
M.I. MaMa

Four Leaf Clover Hunt

Today the weather around here finally felt like Spring is almost here. YAY for no more 30 degree temps!!! We actually went in the backyard today only needing a sweatshirt on! While doing some yard work I decided to instigate a four leaf clover hunt, similar to the story line in a book we read on the first day of March(see March Madness post).

As we were walking through the backyard, I asked Emery to stop and look down at her feet. I once again showed her a patch of clover. I asked, "Do you see another patch?" She briefly looked around and said, "No." That didn't work so well. I  then asked, " Do you want to try and find a four leaf clover like Lucky did in the Leprechaun book?" She immediately looked down and claimed she found one. I said, "Oh you did. Lets count the leaves." She counted one, two, three. Nope not enough. To encourage her to keep hunting I said, "Lets keep trying. Remember in the story, Lucky has a hard time finding four leaf clovers. If we keep on trying maybe we can find some too." ( At this moment in time I have just provided Lil' Em with a naturalist, logic-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial,intrapersonal lesson integrated with a previous linguistic experience)

  We kept hunting and she finally did discover there are plenty more patches of clover in our yard. To be honest, I'm sure there is more clover than grass in our yard.

Here she is counting the leaves.

In the end, we did not find a four leaf clover. Her interest wore out and she was ready to move on to another adventure. When I could tell she was done, I said maybe we will look again another time. I once again provided a linguistic moment by telling Emery the story of how I searched and searched for four leaf clovers and finally found a whole patch of them when I was a grown-up! I didn't mention I had them in the house because I still am a little weary about a 3 year old coming within grasp of my clovers...can you tell I consider them precious? I guess I'm a sucker for mythology. Actually I do want her to see them, I just need to lay out a few guidelines before she gets to see them. Plus, she really was ready to go kick her ball around. 


Here are my clovers! I will never reveal the patch location except to a very selected few. I will tell you this: I found them in my early days of teaching. I was a teaching assistant at that time. I was working in after care with a few young kids and it was near St. Patrick's Day. I suggested going out to look for four leaf clovers. I was in utter shock when we actually found some!! I had been searching my whole life for as long as I could remember. Needless to say, I picked some, we all did. We brought them inside and pressed them in a book to help flatten and preserve them. Years later I returned to this same location and there were still some! Not as many as the first time and the patch was a little farther away from the original patch. Here they are:

 Some of the leaves have pressed together. There is still four leaves though :)

For now, we will continue to hunt for four leaf clovers in our own backyard. If I'm ever in that neck of the woods again though where I know my patch grows, there is no doubt Em and I will be there searching. 


Whether you believe the four leaf clover folklore or not, exposing children to mythological stories is a key to promoting imaginative play.


~Good Luck,
M.I. MaMa

MARCH Madness

March Madness!! No, I don't watch college basketball; I just love the month of March! There are a few months of the year I just adore, and March is one of them. The first of March means SPRING is coming!! Little green leaves are popping out from leafless winter branches, daffodils and tulips are beginning to sprout their leaves and buds, days are slowly getting longer and warmer, birds are returning, its time to start planning and prepping the garden, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated, and the first day of Spring is upon us!

I used this first day of March as a platform to expose Em to the concept of calendar months. Lately her curiosity has peeked as she now at 3&1/2  is finally understanding our cultural holidays, and we have more scheduled events in our life: We go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, tumbling class on Wednesdays, grocery shop on Wednesdays, Playgroup is on Friday, her Birthday is June 20th. Plus, she just really seems to "get " holidays now. Santa is a forever presence in our house :)

This consistency in events is what children, especially toddlers and babies, crave! It helps them feel secure because routine is established when events are predictable and ordered. When Em was a baby, I was a very vocal parent-meaning I always narrated our day to Em: It's "changing your diaper time",  "eating time", "snacktime", " booktime", "bedtime", "playtime"," time to go to the store","mommy or daddy has to go to work time", etc. The word "time" may seem over done, but words like this can be very powerful. Babies begin to tune into these words. It helps children track their day and plus it promotes language development.

So, back to calendar months. Our calendar and culture are dominated with celebrations and holidays. Therefore, to introduce calendar months, I used our culture's celebrations. I used the following visual aid to introduce months to Em. Visual aids are a great tool to exercise the spatial intelligence. I acquired this in my teaching days. It is really easy to replicate though. Go to any local learning store or dollar store and look for a large poster board with Calendar months, or you can even make one yourself! Purchase stickers that represent each months major holiday/event/theme. I suggest snowmen and snowflakes for January, Hearts for February, Leprechauns,rainbows, &gold for March, bunnies&eggs or other religious symbols for April, flowers for May, butterflies and bees for June, fireworks for July, sun and sunglasses for August, apples and sunflowers for September, halloween stickers for October, Thanksgiving icons for November, and holiday icons for December.

March holidays are St Patrick's Day and the first day of Spring. I consider the first day of Spring a celebration in its self, therefore, I chose not to introduce it until March 21st. Instead I focused on St. Patrick's Day, the color green, the shape of a clover, rainbows, and leprechauns and their symbolic myths.

First, I made a display of a few items and decorations.

I then brought Em out to the kitchen to show her the calendar month sign hung on the door. This helped peek her curiosity as to what we were getting ready to do. I wanted to start with something she was familiar with. I pointed out how there were heart stickers on the calendar. I then talked about how that month was February. I stated a new month has started now called March. I pointed at the word. I then pointed at the stickers and explained the shape is called a clover. I told her clover grows in our yard. I then brought up St. Patrick's Day and the iconic symbols that go along with it. (She faintly recognized the words because we had already briefly discussed this holiday because when St. Valentine's Day was over, she asked "what day comes next mom?") When I told her what a leprechaun was she looked at me foreignly. We then went to the previously arranged display to further peek curiosity and also furthermore explain the myth of a leprechaun.

I started by narrating a March poem. I use the poems from Maurice Sendack's Chicken Soup with Rice. The first couple times I read the poem I only read the words. I then add in a few cute hand gestures to the narration of the words( I should make a video of this but right now I'm too tired). Soon Emery will be joining right in with me :) She loved the wind coming in the door!

Next, I narrated this leprechaun poem. I have hand gestures for this one too. By this time she was fully engaged!!

Both these poems are now hanging on our refrigerator for further reference.

We then did a book look of our bedtime story in which we would learn more about leprechauns. This is a great read about a little boy leprechaun searching for 10 clovers so he can acquire his pot of gold from the Leprechaun King. It's an interactive book that gets your child using their spatial skills as they hunt for the hidden four leaf clovers right along with the main character. It had a great intrapersonal lesson about never giving up and discussed the iconic symbols of leprachauns: gold, rainbows, four-leaf clovers.

Her letter and word curiosity has really kicked into full gear lately so naturally she was fascinated by the Happy St. Patrick's Day sign. I decided to turn it into a linguistic game with a little "I spy" a letter. At the end you get a glimpse of my little character I am blessed to spend my days with!!!

We finished by playing with an upcoming craft and decorating the house with this constructed centerpiece.

Stay tuned! The next couple weeks will be filled with our March Madness activities, first beginning with the theme of Leprechauns, clovers, &everything green, and then on to our SPRING theme!

This is a self-portrait Em took of herself. I am always snapping the camera during our adventures so of course she has a desire as well!

 & here is her display picture :)

~Feeling Lucky,
M.I. Mama