Fakin' It

St. Patrick's Day Snack

Once again I missed MTM. But, I am glad I waited because the boys love muffin tin meals too, and are bummed when they miss the lunches. This week I did a simple after-school snack in the color green for St. Patrick's Day. Normally, I kick the kid(s) out of the kitchen so the meal is a surprise but today I recruited my littlest helper.

 
First we made Pistachio pudding from a box, using skim milk. Notice L even has a green whisk to go with her green football jersey and green pudding. Someday I think I will have a contest to see who can figure out how many jerseys L owns. She seems to be wearing a different one in every post.

 
Next, we drizzled pretzels with candy melts. These green ones were left over from Christmas and I knew I didn't have enough to cover all the pretzels, so we drizzled. In kid-speak this means glop it on and then shake it off. Fun but messy!

 
Here we are, a muffin tin snack fit for Leprechauns. I love my cute new Wilton muffin molds. The set came with 6 yellow and 6 pink. I just used the six yellow (2 for each kid if your not good at math) because I didn't think the boys would appreciate the pink. Only my oldest really loved the pistachio pudding. Little L thought it was OK and J wanted nothing to do with it. The pretzels were a big hit with all three.

 
And what muffin tin meal or snack would be complete without a book? I was on the waiting list at the library for about 10 different St. Patrick's Day books but The Luckiest Leprechaun was the only one that came in on time. It is a sweet story about friendship and what is most important in life. It's got fairies, a big fluffy dog, and a lovable yet grumpy little Leprechaun. For more MTM ideas be sure to check out Muffin Tin Mom's Blog.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Saint Patrick Craft and Book

St. Patrick's Day is almost upon us and one of the things my seven year old, J, decided to do for Lent was to learn more about the Saints. What better Saint to begin with than Patrick? I volunteer in J's class during library so I helped him pick out Patrick Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola.

 
This book tells Patrick's story from a young boy until his death. I like that it saved the legends as an aftermath to his life story. There were some I did not know, like his fingers lighting up to help find the lost horses. I thought J could best remember the story of Saint Patrick if we did an interactive craft.

We started with a coloring sheet of St. Patrick. I found the link at Catholic Icing's blog. J colored the picture and then cut it out. We taped a skewer to the back to make a stick puppet. I think a popsicle stick would have worked better but this was the first thing I found.

 

Next we cut a 12x12 piece of white paper int o thirds. Using one third, we glued on strips of colored paper to make a rainbow. The use of the rainbow, while not part of Saint Patrick's story, is often associated with St. Patrick's Day and I thought it would add a bit of fun and whimsy to the learning. J cut clouds out another third of the paper. I wrote Britain on one and Ireland on the other. Using sharp scissors I cut a slit right under the first colored line to insert our puppet.

J also made a shamrock or clover using one of my heart punches and to which he added a little rectangle for the stem. The three leaf clover was said to be one of St. Patrick's teaching tools in regards to the Holy Trinity, so I wrote "Father", "Son," and "Holy Spirit" on the leaves.  We glued that to the center of the picture because his Faith is the center of his life.  
 

Once the Saint Puppet was inserted into the picture, J could tell the story by sliding Patrick back and forth. He started with Patrick growing up near the shore in Britain and being kidnapped and taken by boat to Ireland. It was just coincidence but worked out well that the top strip was blue like the water. Eventually Patrick received word from God that a boat would be waiting for him and he sailed back to  Britain. Then he decided he needed to take the word of God back to Ireland and sailed across again to build the first Church.

 

Capture the Leprechaun

I'm a hoarder. I admit it. If I think I can use something for a craft, I keep it, forever. Strangely I have no problem throwing it away once done, once it has lived out its usefulness. When I went downstairs to my craft area today, I had no idea what I was going to make. I decided I needed to use at least one of the many empty jars that I have collected over time. Here is what I found:

My middle child was at Cub-scouts, so I had to make this something for both my nine year old and my four year old. My middle child had actually colored the rice with food coloring and alcohol for an earlier school project and these bags were what was left. The colored pasta I purchased years ago. I also found a stray popsicle stick and a lonely wooden heart. And then there are the wiggly eyeballs. I have wiggly eye balls up to my eye balls, all colors and sizes. These are green. There is some orange glitter, craft glue, and scrap card stock in black and green.

C, my nine year old, was in charge of the leprechaun. He glued the eyes onto the heart and used glue and orange glitter for the beard. He made a freehand hat with the black and green paper and also used the green paper to make accordian arms and rectangular body. He then glued everything to the popsicle stick.

My little L got the job of sorting the colored pasta into the rice bags. We counted how many pieces of each color and predicted whether the next color would have more or less than the last.

 
She preferred to sort them on the plate first before placing the pastas in the bag.

 
It got a little messy when L poured in her rainbow but hey its just not fun without a little mess.

Once all the layers had been poured and the leprechaun was dry, he was stuck down into the pasta rice mixture.

 
 
And now a closer look at our captured leprechaun.