Chicago Northwest side St. Patricks Day Irish Parade Hats Craft

We love going to our nearby St. Patricks Day parade. And every year I get better at remembering to dress us in green, and make something crafty for more festive fun.

This year I made little leprechaun hats for the kid. Of course older son is at that age where he doesnt want to wear these types of hats anymore, but he was all about collecting beads thrown on the parade route!

The green construction paper was salvaged from younger sons school calendar amd christmas work. The teacher has them glue art to a piece of construction paper so it looks like a border or a frame. I take a pic of all his work (as in the previous post) and then salvage these large pieces for our crafts.

Chicago Northwestside St. Patricks Day Irish Parade, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

I used a flat bendable cardboard piece we had in our scrap bin, cut and rolled it into the hat tops. Then I draw circles for the hat bottoms. Stapled the hat tops, and bottoms. I cut a circle in the center of the hat bottom and cut mini triangles to staple to the hat to.

Wrapped the top in paper. Added the strip for the hat "belt." Then staples the string to the hat interior and a hole on the other side of the hat. Fed the string thru the hole so the kids could adjust their hats in their heads. Once adjusted I made a know so the hats wouldn't fall off.

Chicago Northwestside St. Patricks Day Irish Parade, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

Our kids made off with a bounty of candy, we can fill our candy jar 2x over!


Chicago Northwestside St. Patricks Day Irish Parade, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

The whole parade takes about one and a half hours to pass. And clears out even quicker when its over.


Chicago Northwestside St. Patricks Day Irish Parade, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

Annual fun!

NEW UPDATED :: YOUTUBE CHANNEL INFO

Our family has had many adventures through the years. Mom, the @Minstr0Interior had an a-ha moment . . .  Suddenly I See what we will have filled our life with, ADVENTURES! We travel, craft, sing, dance, collect insects and spend loads of time together. Sometimes too much time together. Our kids have recently begun to document their own adventures, and so this channel was born. Enjoy our adventures. Or not. WANT MORE? If there is a blog post accompanying this video we will share it here. Sometimes we will include the ingredients list of the craft or recipe, or the itinerary of our trip. In the meantime click play. 

From our family: 👍 + 🙃 + ❤️ ( Thumbs up, emoji face, hearts! )

See It Live >>> 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2mGpujQIVgxdfTImFnQuLA

Make Mistakes, breathe, reflect, and Laugh.Out.Loud.

Sorting School Work that comes Home and Our Word Wall

My younger son is in Kindergarten and comes home with lots and lots of paperwork! His teacher has a great approach to keeping monthly Math Journal where the kids do math work nearly everyday. She's thematic so we have Winter based projects, like Penguins theme or the Gingerbread man. Then there is my favorite work - popcorn words - which have allowed us to build our word wall.

One year later.

I often find my younger son standing in front of the wall, where we have taped up his word projects that he taped and wrote, and he is reading his words! My favorite moments are when his lil' sister stands next to him repeating what he says.

Most recently my younger son read a bedtime book to me!! It was "Hop on Pop." He needed some prompting to sound out words like WHere and THere, and then after we read the page with corrections he said: "Mom, I got this." And he reread the page again on his own, sounding out the words. I know now that my happiness tears were because I was so proud of his determination to reread the page correctly and without help!

Sorting School Work that comes Home & Our Word Wall, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

The "popcorn words" strategy that his Kindergarten teachers uses is not a rote memorization technique. The kids interact with the words, building them by cutting out and sounding out the letters and words. My older son had to memorize 150 words in his Kindergarten class, he also had to write sentences even tho he wasn't sounding out words (as we wrote because I didn't know better as a new mom). 

Older son didn't read until 1st grade. I can see the difference in how they learned the words and did and didn't interact with the words directly impacted how they learned to read, and how quickly.

This other photo is of my younger sons school work. I kept many pages of my older sons school work with his binder bursting at the seams. My younger son will have photos of ALL his work with select pieces he and I choose as our favorites in his binder. 


Sorting School Work that comes Home & Our Word Wall, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

I just love when the kids hit these milestones with leaps and bounds.  

Update: In 2015 My younger son entered school "behind" in reading (level B instead of C). He has since caught up and made leaps and bounds in reading. More importantly he loves books. And now that he has started reading he is reading by choice, for his own pleasure. 

I have my older sons 150 kindergarten sight words which we use to supplement his school list in 1st grade this year. Learning those base of sight words really did make a smoother reading transition for my older son. At the time i was anti-flashcards, feeling they PUSH information versus actually learning it. I was wrong. I think flashcards and sight words have a place...we just have to make it fun. 

• Play memory with the sight words
• Speed race once my son learned 60-70% of the words list
• and learn it in manageable portions of about 5-8 words per week.
• Keeps last weeks mastered words and add more words next week, now having 10-16 words. 
• Continue every week. Through summer as well.

Make Mistakes, Breathe, Reflect and Laugh.Out.Loud.

More School Lunchbag Notes Handmade

In a previous post I showed the stack of lunchbag notes I had made for my older son in 2010 and beyond.... See post here:
areyousureaboutthatblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/easy-lunch-b...

So year after year I have added a few notes here and there, also using packing tape to cover the notes and protect them from moisture. Some of my favorite notes were destroyed by a spilled drink or left open / incorrectly closed container (as is the case with little kids). The tape
Measure has provided some super protection!!

My artsy side took over one day and baby girl insisted we draw. She pulled out movie cases from off of our shelves to give me inspiration. This is the result. Colored pencil on plain paper stock - the back of index cards. My favorite was a scene from Totoro our obsession since (Japan and borrowing it at the library) receiving the movie as a Christmas gift.

More School Lunchbag Notes Handmade, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

All these lunch notes need is some packing tape to protect them from all those punch messes.

Make mistakes, Breathe, Reflect and Laugh.Out.Loud!