March 5, 2013

What is a St. Patrick’s Day themed sensory bin or treasure hunt I can do with my preschooler? What is an educational St. Patrick’s Day game?

Winter is finally loosening its death grip on the city where I live, which is always a cause for celebration for me. Basically, the closer it gets to spring, the more I come back to life. This winter has been crazy cold with crazy snow so I’ve been singing praises to the sun every time I see it. Part of my coming back to life process means I suddenly want to be the bestest, most coolest, with the greatest ideas ever mom. So, naturally, I decided to do a week of super labor intensive (on my part), but amazingly awesome St. Patrick’s Day themed sensory bins and treasure hunts.

Since I was going all out, I decided to do a different sensory bin AND treasure hunt every day for a week. To top it all off, they are St. Patrick’s Day themed AND educational. I rarely get this motivated so I just went with it. First, I made these Shamrock Alphabet cards. Honestly, after printing and laminating these, I really wished they were smaller. So, I made a set of Small Shamrock Alphabet cards. I also made some printable gold coins. You could use plastic gold coins or even chocolate gold coins, but I couldn’t find any at the store when I went, so we just used these printed gold coins. I compiled a pdf with all of the St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin printables which you can download here. It includes just the smaller alphabet set, not the large one.

Each day for one week, Little Bear did a treasure hunt in a sensory bin. There was a different type of sensory bin and treasure hunt each day. Each day he completed the activity, he got a gold coin. When he got all five gold coins, he got to “make a wish” (see explanation in the bottom paragraph).

5 Days of St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bins and Treasure Hunts

Monday

Sensory bin is filled with green colored pasta and green pompoms

Treasure Hunt: All alphabet cards are hidden in sensory bin. Little Bear finds each letter, and then puts it on the correct place on the Shamrock Alphabet Match Page.  Here is the Small Shamrock Alphabet Match Page. He got one gold coin for completing the treasure hunt.

Tuesday

Sensory bin is filled with green waterbeads

Treasure Hunt: All alphabet cards are hidden in sensory bin. We didn’t have enough waterbeads to fill our bin so the beads were in a pitcher instead. Little Bear find all the letters. When he has found all of them, he puts them in alphabetical order. He got one gold coin for completing the treasure hunt.

Wednesday

Sensory bin is filled with green colored salt and green glass gems

Treasure Hunt: All alphabet cards are hidden in sensory bin. Little Bear finds each letter, and then marks each letter as it is found on the Alphabet dot marker page. He got one gold coin for completing the treasure hunt.

Thursday

Sensory bin is filled with green, yellow, and white shredded paper

Treasure Hunt: All alphabet cards are hidden in sensory bin. Little Bear finds each letter. When he pulls out a letter, he writes the letter on a blank piece of paper to record that he has found it. He got one gold coin for completing the treasure hunt.

Friday

No sensory bin today

Treasure Hunt: Each of the letters was hidden outside in our backyard. Little Bear finds each letter and puts it in his basket. The one trick is, he must find the letters in alphabetical order. He will receive one gold coin for completing the treasure hunt. This was definitely his favorite activity of them all!

When Little Bear got all five gold coins, he got to make one wish. I made this Choose One Wish printable with three choices, so Little Bear didn’t actually make up a wish. The wishes he could choose were: Get a special pencil to use for journal writing, Have a picnic at the park, Get a St. Patrick’s Day surprise (a.k.a. some random St. Patrick’s Day thing that I will find from the dollar store). He chose the picnic and we are doing it this weekend!

Again, if you want all of the printables in one, just download them here!

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Tags: learning activities, Montessori, preschool activities, sensory bins, st. patrick's day, treasure hunt