St. Patrick's Day Projects

With St. Patrick's Day coming up, we're starting our lesson ideas this Monday so we'll have two weeks to learn about it. Of course, the most important part is teaching the true story of St. Patrick. It's hard to find things that don't get into leprechauns, pots of gold, rainbows, etc., since we've gotten so far away from the original intention of celebrating this man of faith. St. Patrick brought so many people to the Lord and it is now celebrating by getting drunk on green beer. Strange how that happens.

Anyway, I'll get off my soap box and share some of the ideas we've come up with. A good book for little ones to learn about the real St. Patrick is "The Story of Saint Patrick's Day," by Patricia A. Pingry. For older kids, I haven't found much for good ones so let me know if you do. We'll be going to the library this week and if I find something good, I'll let you know.

A good resource is the VeggieTales Sumo of the Opera movie. On it, there's a short skit at the beginning about St. Patrick. It includes how he taught the people of Ireland about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit with a shamrock. It's a good introduction for kids, although it takes a few fictional spins here and there.

To make a complete unit study, we'll explore the continent of Ireland, including it's geography, history, society, etc. Try searching online for some Irish food recipes and cook a few. These will cover social studies and home ec.

Here's a recipe I found for Irish Soda Bread:
2 cups white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter, chilled
1 cup raisins (Oh, come in--leave them in. It'll be good for the kids to get used to them!)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt

Heat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in the butter until it's in pea-sized clumps. Stir in the raisins and buttermilk or yogurt. Turn onto a floured surface and knead for 1 minute. Shape into a disc and put on a greased baking sheet. Cut an "X" in the top and bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool 20 minutes before slicing.

By the way--the history on why the Irish made bread with soda instead of yeast is an interesting story in itself. See if you and your kids can find out why.

For art, make sure to have lots of green craft items on hand. Green construction paper and green pipe cleaners can be used to make shamrock headbands. You can also make a giant shamrock by making three hearts from green construction paper and sticking them together. This would be a good project to then write the names of each of the trinity members on: one for the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Spirit.

There are tons of links and stuff for printables, activities, etc. online, but I haven't found that many that don't include all the leprechauns and stuff. If you are interested in incorporating those, then you shouldn't have a problem finding things online. We chose not to in order to stick to the original account and not fall into all of the things that take us away from the real meaning. The fact that this man followed God's call to go back to the people that enslaved him in order to led them to the Lord should be enough of a fascinating story for our kids (and for us adults)! I will post any good links I find in the next two weeks. Hope you enjoy!

Thanksgiving Unit

I know I haven't posted for a while, but I still use the links to the left all the time. I found one for Thanksgiving that is great and wanted to point out to other homeschooling/non-homeschooling families checking out this blog. Click on the link to the left for the free social studies curriculums and click on either the American Heritage elementary, middle school, or high school link according to your child's age. Scroll down and open the pdf file for the Thanksgiving Unit. It's brief but it's a good start.

Here are some more links to other Thanksgiving projects:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/thanksgiving/

http://www.sail1620.org/teaching_games.shtml#ColoringBook

http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/celebrate/thanksgiving-coloring-pages/

http://abcteach.com/directory/seasonalholidays/thanksgiving/
This one has some really fun stuff, including some cards to print off on card stock for a Thanksgiving memory game that we have already played and loved. It helps develop terms like "Mayflower" "Squanto" and "Pilgrims" in little kids' memories.

Most importantly, may our eyes be focused on thanking the Lord this Thanksgiving ahead of all of our modern-day traditions, just as our leaders have done before us, including Abe Lincoln. The main focus is what the pilgrims did: they left a life of what most Americans would consider "comfort" for the freedom to worship God as their almighty, merciful Father whom they each knew through a personal relationship with Christ. That kind of intimacy was against what the Church of England and those state churches allowed and thus, the pilgrims endured incredible hardship and for almost half of them, death, all for the freedom to continue their personal relationships with the Lord Jesus Christ. (Praise God for those of us who know that it's worth it!) Happy Thanksgiving!