Happy..... Day

So I had pinned all these fabulous St. Patrick's ideas. 

Like this one from Meet the Dubiens

Source: meetthedubiens.com via Taryn on Pinterest

And this one from Lisa Storms

Source: lisastorms.typepad.com via Taryn on Pinterest

And these great ideas from Be Fickle:

Source: befickle.blogspot.com via Taryn on Pinterest

REALITY:
The day before St. Pat's, Little Princess had a roller skating birthday party to attend, and when we got home from that, I picked up Big Princess from school dance and helped to load the kids in the cars.  Exhaustion set in.  On actual St. Patrick's Day, Big Princess had a REALLY early morning softball practice, Little Princess woke up earlier than anticipated. 

We had Lucky Charms for breakfast.  Oh well, at least the table was festive.

I was determined not to the let opportunity for fun on this gorgeous day slip away.So, after our St. Patrick's breakfast on the fly, and taking Big Princess to mid-day volleyball practice (!)  Little Princess and I headed to the yard and helped Daddy by pulling some dandelions and dandelion leaves.  We fed the leaves to the guinea pig, grabbed some paper from the art easel, paints, and an empty Girl Scout cookie plastic container, and went back out.

We decided to paint the paper rainbow colors with the dandelions.  We mixed colors rather than using the paints from the set.

And what better to stir with than a nearby twig?  While we were painting with the flowers, we were visited by some friendly honeybees. While watching them flit from weed  flower to flower, we had a great opportunity not to only learn about honey making, but bee "safety".  Little Princess could be heard saying over and over "Go away bee.  I eat your honey, not help you make it. But thanks for making it!"  

This day became a real process over product day.  The pictures of the product I took do NO justice to this great activity of color mixing, plant and animal uses, warm sunny days, and fun together.  Not even going to include them.

Well, when I went inside to get something to put the paint covered flowers in, Little Princess got creative.  I came back outside to this:

Her discovery?  "Mommy, when you mix all the colors it makes Hokie Maroon!"

So, we broke out another piece of paper and did some handprint painting.  While she was busy with this, I was determined to celebrate SOMETHING from St. Patrick's Day other than sugary cereal.  So I did a relief carving (used small cookie cutters to cut out the shape) in a potato, and we used up the rest of the paint stamping with the potato. 

I am adding this product, because it completely made my smile.  She turned some of the circles into Mike Wazoski's from Monster's Inc. (ever a Disney family) added more dandelion prints, painted with the stirring twigs.  This picture epitomizes childhood for me - colorful, fun, happy!  She ended the fun with some water play in the bathtub.... :)

Later in the day, showers moved in.  At one point, both Princesses were running around the backyard in the rain back and forth to our "building" in the backyard where Daddy was working on his lawnmower.  And at the end of the showers, we were given this.  It was still sprinkling, but Big Princess insisted on being photographed with the rainbow.  Why not?

Big Princess tried to catch it.  I'm no photographer.  Wish I had thought to have her hold a bucket to catch it in. 

So while it wasn't the St. Patrick's Day I had planned, it was a Happy Day!  Moral of the story - don't get in your own, or your children's way.

Rainbow fun

So now that March has arrived, we're in full on Spring mode!  All the snowmen and snowflakes came down, and it's time to add some color to our world again.  What better way to do than with RAINBOWS! 

 How very sweet of my text colors to be in rainbow order.  How did I never notice that before?

Some of the activities we've done so far: (Insert 12 year old sarcasm "What, is it like, national rainbow month or something?"  Ahh.  The joys of a 7 year age difference in my princesses.)


A mixed media/sensory collage rainbow.  I traced a rainbow and wrote the color words in each arc.  Little princess has enough beginning sound knowledge to figure them out.  (We did leave out indigo, I wasn't that ambitious).  Then we began the hunt through the house.  NOTHING was off limits - we used foam stickers, napkins, tissue paper, leaves, cut up a washcloth, ribbons, bows, glitter glue, markers, buttons, colored glue, shreds for gift baskets, fabric scraps, cut out pictures from catalogs, grocery bags, and mylar balloons!  This was definitely a process over product project, but I am pleased with the results.

Rainbow breakfast:
I'm not especially proud of this one, but going to share anyway.  We decided to make a rainbow yogurt plate.  This was GREAT fun to work with color mixing, as we used food dyes.  That's the part I'm not proud of.  I try very hard to keep food dyes out of my girls as much as possible, and then I load up a plate of yogurt with them. BOO! The upside is that they spent much more time mixing up the colors than eating the yogurt. The end result didn't look a lot like a typical rainbow, but it was a fun learning experiment!

 The good part of the breakfast were rainbow fruit  kabobs.  I'm starting to let little princess (5) work with a real knife - GASP! - if closely supervised.  She helped to cut the strawberries and bananas.  Little Princess  threaded strawberry slices, orange  pieces, banana slices, green grapes, and purple grapes onto skewers.  If we had had blueberries, that would have been the blue.  I loved this activity, as we incorporated color words, patterns, fine motor, nutrition information,  and practical life skills.  (No picture, but I'm sure you get the idea).  The yogurt was deemed a dipper for the fruits, to preserve the rainbow, but then they decided the fruit was better on it's own and turned the yogurt into brown blobs before washing it down the sink!

I spy a rainbow
I pulled this out of my brain on the  car ride to my Mom's house Sunday.  Quick, involved the whole family, and fun.  Similar to the ABC spy game, but we had to find rainbow colors in rainbow order.  We found 5 in 5 minutes!


Other ideas I've pinned to do this month:

Source: prekandksharing.blogspot.com via Taryn on Pinterest

Crystallized rainbows:

Source: eisforexplore.blogspot.com via Taryn on Pinterest

Rainbow Sensory Bin

Source: playcreateexplore.com via Taryn on Pinterest

Clothespin  Butterfly - Going to make this in "rainbow order" also.

Source: indietutes.blogspot.com via Taryn on Pinterest

And since rainbows and unicorns go together in my mind, I'd alter this to have a rainbow in the backdrop:

Source: beingcreativewithkids.blogspot.com via Taryn on Pinterest

Books we love for rainbows:

What Makes a Rainbow by Betty Ann Schwartz

A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman



Other resources:
My favorite Rainbow Song. EVER. by Greg and Steve.  NOT exactly rainbow order, but awesome song.
The World is a Rainbow

My second (close second) rainbow song.  Israel Kamakawiwo'ole Somewhere Over the Rainbow  You Tube video

I like this Rainbow Song from You Tube because it is calming, and displays the color words.  I must admit that it bothers me a bit, as it's not true to the ROY G BIV rainbow - it does blue, purple, pink; since pink is Little Princess's favorite color, I deal with it.


Colors of the Rainbow Signing Time  on You Tube


Noah's Ark tie-ins
The 1959 Disney Noah's ark video series on You Tube.  Reminds me of Rankin Bass!
Part 1 Part 2  It doesn't have a rainbow in it, but I tie rainbows to this Biblical lesson.

Animated Arky Arky song also on You Tube.

And for those with older princes and princesses - we love to watch this modern interpretation of Noah's Ark - Evan Almighty


And why the obsession with rainbows, to answer my 12 year old's question.  They make me happy.  Happiness is a good thing, Martha.

I'll leave you with this.   I love the beginning of this poem titled "If I could catch a rainbow" by Sandra Lewis Pringle:

If I could catch a rainbow

I would do it just for you.

And share with you it's beauty

on the days you are feeling blue.

What's your favorite rainbow activity?

This blog is an Amazon Affiliate.