LINKS OF INTEREST

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated across the U.S. by amateur drinkers glugging green beer.  Is there a way for us to enjoy some Colcannon (I prefer it with kale) with the cheese that usually accompanies the holiday?  Here's a couple suggestions:

1. Ombre Shamrocks

This cool project (via Lollyjane.com) would be a great way to help kids understand about tones.  Instead of just being throwaway crafty, the finished project actually comes out quite beautiful.  If your kids are too young for all the intricate cutting, just cut the pieces and hand them the glue stick.  Arranging these in order of the shades is really satisfying for some kids and I love that the supplies (paint chips) are practically free!  

1. Snag some green paint chips in different hues from the paint section of your local home improvement store, {or Walmart where I got mine.} Cut them up by hue.  2. I originally used a heart punch for the Valentine art but the shamrocks looked too chubby so I simply drew a heart on the back of a chip, cut it out and then in half to make a pattern.  Fold each paint chip in half, trace the half heart 3x’s and cut out: you now have some cute dimensional hearts.  Repeat, repeat, repeat…  3. Start hot glueing hearts in 3′s {forming a shamrock} in rows by hue.  I snagged a few sticks off my tamarack tree to create a stem for my shamrocks and simply glued them in between the 3 hearts.    4. Frame your art in a cute funky frame and display with your current St. Patrick’s Day decor.

It may also be an appropriate time to inspire with the great color theorist, Josef Albers.

2. Grow Shamrocks

 The symbol of the holiday is the shamrock (oxalis plant.)  These are pretty easy to find at floral stores this time of year and would be a great treat for kids to water, give sun, and take care of.  Not only will the plant bring your family luck, but there may even be a four leaf clover in there.  Have the kids spend an afternoon looking!  Chicagoparents.com gives the step by step on how to grow them.  

3. Sunday Bloody Sunday

(Mural by Bogside Artists depicting those killed.)

Dig into a little Irish history lesson about the fated day known as Bloody Sunday.  One Sunday in 1972, 26 unarmed Civil Rights protesters were shot by British soldiers- causing escalating violence around Northern Ireland.  The incident is interesting in and of itself, but also inspired intense artistic reactions- which could be fun to explore with your olden children.

U2- "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Paul McCartney- "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" (This song was banned in the UK.)

Nobel Prize winning poet, Seamus Heaney, reads his poem "Casualty" about the events:

Seamus Heaney - Casualty - Video Dailymotion