Being a true Irish Protestant, I have never celebrated any Irish holidays; including St. Patrick’s Day.
Matthew announced last night that he wants to celebrate that very holiday. All I thought about was shamrocks and something green. Need to know more… so school today became a research on the origin of the St. Patrick ’s Day and methods of celebration.
After our grammar lesson we compiled a list of things we already knew about St. Patrick and things we needed to find out. Then we did an internet and dictionary search to find the answers.
It turns out that St. Patrick was more than just a banisher of snakes. He had a very adventurous life which included being kidnapped and sold as a slave, escaping captivity and after some time studying theology returning to the land of his captors to help free them from the tyranny of eternal death. We learned about the shamrock leaf. It symbolizes the Trinity! We defined the word ‘Saint’ and discovered the reason for the color green in everything Irish.
I downloaded some St. Patrick’s Day learning activity sheet. We completed them before rushing to karate. After karate we went to Kroger to buy some green cupcakes.
Before dinner, Matthew read out loud a fact sheet on St. Patrick we downloaded and he and Lily did watercolor paintings of an Irish landscape and then glued on shamrocks that Matthew & I had cut out earlier.
All the while we played Irish music.
Lily dyed the lemonade green and we drank out of the Irish crystal my Godfather gave us for a wedding present. Dinner was green (peas & broccoli), white (chicken, potato & butter) & orange (carrots & cheese). Mark proposed a toast to the courage and daring of St. Patrick, clinking glasses and all. The green cupcakes turned out to be Easter ones with little candy eggs on top, but the kids didn’t notice once smothered in mint choc ice cream.
Again I was reminded that it is better to do that to not do.
To read more about the early history of Ireland check out http://www.saintpatrickcentre.com/patrick/index.asp
