A Wee Bit of Fun

Special days kind of sneak up on me. I see them coming about a week before and I tell myself – Don’t forget to wear red for Valentine’s Day. Fast forward, I get to school on Valentine’s Day, see red all around me and then remember that I forgot all about it when I was figuring out what to wear that morning. It’s partly Teacher brain too. We have so much going on all the time, the overload takes its toll after awhile. I was using the light on my phone the other day to help me find my phone. Seriously.

So, I have decided that St. Patrick’s Day is not going to sneak up on me. I will be ready, I will wear green, I will mark the day with a fitting tribute to the Irish in all of us. Years ago, I used to diligently paint leprechaun foot prints all over the classroom after school. But, those were in my Kindergarten days when the kids would fall for it hook, line and sinker. Now, my kids are older (2nd Grade) and they are crafty and wise themselves, I need to find other ways to amuse them. And so I appealed to their devices (pardon the pun) and created a digital St. Patrick’s Day that they could explore and learn from.

We do this as a whole class activity so that we can practise our predicting and inferencing strategies as we attempt to solve the mystery. But, kids could also do it on iPads or tablets for fun. So the mystery essentially is that the Leprechaun is trying to find the missing pot of gold and he encounters all kinds of characters who will give him clues and help him find his way. Kids trying to figure out who has seen the pot of gold and where it will end up next, that’s where the inferencing and predicting comes in. Check it out below.

For really young kids, you can use the 1st sheet, they will colour in the character that they think might have the pot of gold, but for older kids, the 2nd sheet works best. They really need to read critically and use the clues to help them solve the mystery. So it truly is St. Patrick’s Day fun the whole class can play. If you would like to see a sample in action, you can download it by clicking the button below.

Or you can check it out here.