Rainbow Streamer Color Hunt

It was St. Patrick's Day at Preschool which means we got to celebrate the Rainbow. Our family loves a good treasure hunt so we hid the colors of the rainbow and left some clues for the kids. 

Each child was given a paper plate and then I read a clue and the kids ran to find the color. I quickly stapled the colored streamer on each plate and then we searched for the next color. 

Once we got to the purple, we also found gold coins hiding at the end of the rainbow. This was probably the kids favorite part of the Color Hunt. 

The kids can glue on cotton balls if desired and then run around outside with their Rainbow Streamers. We hung ours up inside for a while. It was fun to see the colors blowing around. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Rainbow Jello

In honor of St. Patrick's Day tomorrow, I am posting my Rainbow Jell-o today, just in case anyone wanted to make it with me. I took this picture back in 2010. This does take some prep work. 

To get it to fit in a trifle bowl, you need to use the smaller boxes (3 oz). I've done it in individual cups for my preschoolers and I've done it in glass pyrex baking dishes. Make sure you start with Purple first so the rainbow will look correct when you are done. I follow the directions on the box with the speed set method- sort of. I boil 1 cup of water in the microwave (about 2 minutes) and stir the Jell-o until it is dissolved. Once dissolved, I fill my 1 cup measuring cup with ice cubes and then fill the rest with water. Then I stir that in until the ice cubes are melted. If you've stirred a while and you have small ice cubes that haven't melted, you can spoon them out. Then I pour into my desired dish and let it set. In about an hour, it is ready for my next layer. When doing the next layer, I pour slow and evenly so it isn't just pouring on one spot. I always worry it will make a hole if I just do it in one spot. 

Do us a favor and listen to some Irish Jigs while you dig in. 

PS, the Jello is easier to dish out in the glass pyrex baking dish. 

I love you to pieces

Valentine's day was coming and I looked for something the younger kids could do to share their love with their families and to bring home a Valentine's Decoration. I am not sure if I found one particular person posting this idea, it is a popular one on Pinterest. 

We work on our scissor skills frequently so I thought it would be good to take a break and work on tearing. This takes fine motor skill to be able to do. A lot of the kids first started by using their whole fist to pull the paper apart. They quickly learned that it just crumpled the paper. 

I taught them to use their pincer grasp and to keep their 2 hands close together. If they still struggled, then we gave little nicks in the paper to make it easier. 

Sometimes you just don't realize that this is a skill that not all children know how to do. One of my kids has a hard time with scissors still so this was good for them to work on something different. 

It's always good to go back to basics periodically and just have fun. 

(The written "Love" is redundant. I always give my messed up ones to my kids because I don't care and I know they don't either.)