Ideas:

Bake cookies: Prepare cookie dough ahead and have children cut out shapes, letters and numbers. Bake, frost and enjoy!

Homemade popsicles and swim or run in sprinklers:

Use popsicle molds or ice cube trays to freeze any juice or nectar. Make a creamy treat by adding ice cream. Use one cup juice (we like orange) and 1C vanilla ice cream, stirred together until runny but not liquid, and pour that into the mold to refreeze.  For a yogurt treat, blend plain yogurt and fruit (you can add powdered sugar to taste) and pour in molds to freeze.  There are many popsicle recipes, that include sugars and gelatin to make the popsicles not melt as fast, but we just keep the ingredients simple.

Design a scrapbook for the school year. Have everyone design a cover page and a first day page.  Take pictures at school to add later. Use pre-made scrapbooks or use a binder with page protectors to add to throughout the year.  This is a good place to keep school papers, pictures, and report cards.

Design a frame:  Make frames and decorate. Take a picture of child and friends to place in frame.

A mellow evening with just the family. Order pizza and eat a picnic style dinner outside, give each child  journal or new book to read that night as a family.

Where to start?

Choose the time of day.

The time of the party depends the age of your children, your schedule and if you will serve a meal or light snacks. For a small group, I start at 9:00a.m. and have green pancakes for breakfast.  If you would like to keep things simple,  plan between meals so you will only offer snacks.

Invite:

If it is for a playgroup or an informal group of friends I will send out an e-mail.  If I am planning a larger group or if I have the time I will buy or make invites to mail.  This is your preference and schedule!

Activities and Crafts:

Most parties I plan are jam packed with activities since we do not have a large house or yard to roam in.  Also, the teacher part of me likes to set everything up in “centers.”   With that in mind, I plan more than I need just in case one craft is not as cool as I thought or if they finish earlier than anticipated.  You may have a large yard or bounce house to allow more free play.  Under the heading of St. Patrick’s Day are several craft and activity ideas for planning a party.

Food:

The theme is quite easy for St. Patrick’s Day, GREEN.   Younger children are easy to plan for since they typically eat snacks for their meals.  So, you could have everyone bring a green snack such as cucumber sticks, celery, grapes, kiwi, chips and guacamole and the list goes on.  As mentioned, I serve a pancake breakfast (pancake mix with green food coloring) and have another snack (green veggies and fruit) a wee bit later. More traditionally, a lunch or dinner of corned beef and cabbage could be served for older children, or the theme of green eggs and ham could be used for food and decorations.

Decorations:

I have the children decorate as they please with green streamers and shamrock cut-outs.  They think of spots that I would never have…like all the doorways.  If you have crafts from school or your own home just put them up and the house looks ready for a celebration!

Have fun and keeping the party simple allows for one more memorable moment with your children.

 Materials Needed:
Empty small jar (like a baby food jar) or plastic water bottle with cap

Hot glue gun or Epoxy glue

Small plastic toy animal (depending on scene)

White rocks for winter scene

Glitter (small cuts of ribbon can be used)

Water

Food coloring, if desired

Directions:
Use hot glue gun to glue rock and animal to the bottom of jar.
Fill with water and add food coloring if desired.
Spoon in some glitter and glue lid onto jar.
Shake to make it snow!

Other Themes:

Birthday: Find cake toppers such as balloons and use colorful confetti, ribbon or glitter.

St. Patrick’s Day: Use green food coloring, green glitter and you may find small items such as shamrocks to glue to bottom.

Easter:  Use a cross to glue to bottom with gold glitter or use red to represent the blood. Pastel colors can also be used with any Easter confetti.

So, how can we incorporate this foreign concept of falling snowflakes, winter boots and gliding down the mountain slopes?  The first part of the winter series is dedicated to winter sports and will continue with further crafts and fun soon.

First of all, and most obvious is to visit your local ice skating arena.  They have special classes for large groups, skating lessons and field trips.  For the sports enthusiast you can visit during hockey practice or games.  We wanted to take our son to the professional hockey games, but know it is way too loud for his liking (and mine!)

Find the snow!  This year our zoo, church, city park and train park all had special events where they brought in snow piles for the children to devour.  What a fun and free (except the zoo) way to play in the snow.

Visit the library.  Let’s never forget the powerful magic of words.  Check out books about the winter olympics, winter sports and  famous athletes.  Which sport would you like to try?

We love boxes.  Boxes transform into anything your child imagines, so why not let them decide what to make that can be used in winter.  I am guessing that a bobsled box would be perfect entertainment for an afternoon.

I should have invented carpet skates.  The most genious and simple invention if you have carpet in your home.  Before we found carpet skates for about ten dollars (I think at Toys R Us)  I would tape wax sandwich bags around the kid’s feet and they would pretend to skate around.  They had a blast.  I am sure this may sound crazy to those of you in parts of the world that have real ice outside your front door.

Technology allows us to explore many exciting new things. For example, record the winter games on television and watch as a family as you enjoy a cup of hot cocoa or even Icees.  I am coming around to video games and I know the concern most parents have about these mindless types of activities.  With that said, I love the Wii snowboarding game and have been caught shredding and grinding the slope!

Use your imagination.  Since we cannot snowboard down the real slopes, we made our couch into a mini hill to use with our cardboard boards.  I had pipe cleaners in the crafts area, so we taped them on for the straps.

This little piggy said, “Wheeeee!”

75 years later, in 1939, President Roosevelt set Thanksgiving one week earlier to lengthen the shopping period before Christmas. Finally, in 1941, Congress ruled that the fourth Thursday of November was going to be the legal federal holiday to celebrate Thanksgiving.

A few writing ideas for a classroom or family at home:

Pretend you are president. Write a proclamation for Thanksgiving Day.  When do you think it should be and how should we celebrate?

Make up your own holiday and describe what should be done on that day.

Read a book about the Mayflower’s trip to America. Write about what it would be like on the Mayflower. If you could only bring one or two items from your home, what would it be?

Keep a Thanksgiving journal. Every year, write the things you are most thankful for and let each member of the family contribute. What a neat tradition and keepsake to look at every Thanksgiving!

Cut paper tubes (paper towel rolls or wrapping paper tubes) into desired width. We cut about two inches wide. Then decorate the rings to match the holiday!

• Choose paint colors and sponge paint the rings. Allow the rings to dry and then roll a napkin and insert it through napkin ring.
• Use glitter glue, buttons, confetti or other items to decorate.

If you use paper napkins you can decorate those too.

Dip string into white paint.  Press the string between two sheets of black or a dark color construction paper.  Then, remove the top paper and string.  The design will look like a spider web.  Just in time to decorate for halloween.

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 1/2 cups Bisqick mix

Flour (to cover board)

Milk (to brush over biscuits)

Butter or honey

Combine pumpkin puree and bisquick mix, turn onto floured board.  Knead until dough is stiff.  Roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into 1 1/2 inch rounds. Place ungreased pan and brush with milk (my kids like to “paint” the biscuits!)   Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  Serve warm with butter or honey.  Makes about two dozen.