We had lots of fun learning about the holiday St. Patrick's Day this week! St. Patrick's Day is an Irish holiday that celebrates the feast day of St. Patrick (March 17th), who is the patron saint of Ireland.
We are very lucky to have a family member of the giraffe class who is from Ireland, so we were able to learn a bit more about the life of St. Patrick and how he arrived in Ireland. We also learned about how this holiday is celebrated there--all schools and businesses are closed, and big parades are held (many places around the U.S. hold parades as well!). It is customary to pick shamrock and pin it to your clothing, like a boutineer.
After we learned about the history of St. Patrick's Day and about its celebrations, we listened to Celtic music while we set to work creating some stained glass shamrocks!
Friends were working so carefully on their shamrocks that many of us were not yet able to finish. But those who did were able to transform their paper into stained glass using cooking oil.
On Thursday, we also got a visit from Sprinkles O'Shea, who was just about to leave the classroom when Ms. Riley arrived at school! She begged him to stay and visit with the giraffes, but he had to be on his way to make a few more deliveries (and cause a bit more mischief-- we are STILL trying to clean up all that glitter, Sprinkles!!)
He left us a teeny little note along with a basket of goodies. At our morning meeting, we read our note and counted up the candy, and we figured out how we could divide it evenly among all of the giraffes.
While it was a short day for the giraffes, we still got to have some fun by learning our Leprechaun Names and making some portraits of a leprechaun. We ran out of time before we could paint our portraits, but we will finish painting on Monday!
I hope all of the giraffes enjoyed our celebrations at school, and I hope you all have a wonderful long weekend.
Sláinte!
