Ireland

We decided to have a focus on Ireland as my husband is from Northern Ireland and a lot of our family live there, so it is somewhere we visit regularly (out-with global pandemics). It was lovely to be able to show Robbie some interesting information and customs associated with such an important part of who he is. Below I have added my planning mindmap and explained the activities we completed.

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Pompom snakes – resources: pipe cleaners, craft pompoms, googly eyes, felt/paper (for the mouth and tongue), glue – we used a craft pack from Wilko to make the snakes but you could find all the materials for making them in shops such as Hobbycraft.

We made snakes to start our Ireland week by winding two pipe cleaners together and bending them into the shape of the snake’s body. Then we stuck the googly eyes, mouth and tongue onto the pompom and let them dry. Once they were dry we stuck the head onto the body and Mummy held it in place for a few minutes. After all the glue had dried our snakes were ready to play.

Robbie helped with sticking the eyes, mouth, tongue and head on and mummy wound the pipe cleaners as they had jaggy ends.

Hand/Footprint Leprechauns – resources: paper, orange paint, googly eyes, green paint, pens.

We painted the fingers/toes and foot/hand heel of Robbie’s hands and feet orange and printed them on the paper to make the hair and beards of our leprechauns. Once they were dry we painted on their green hats and drew on their mouths and noses. We stuck on some googly eyes and finally drey on the hat buckles once the green paint was dry.

They turned out well and Robbie had great fun painting his hands and feet.

Shamrock Cottonwool ball Stamping picture – resources: paper, cottonwood balls, green paint. – It was suggested to use large marshmallows to stamp the shamrock shape, however, I thought cottonwool balls would be less tempting for Robbie to eat! You could equally use a bottle top, round brush, fingers etc.

This was an easy and fun activity. We simply dipped the cotton wool ball into the green paint and dotted it onto the paper with three dots together. Once they had dried we added little stems drawn on with a green pen.

Robbie really enjoyed using cotton wool as a different sensory material while painting.

Colour mixing Shamrock picture – resources: paper, pens, but paint, yellow paint, ziplock sandwich bag – ideally, however we used clingfilm.

I drew out a rough shamrock shape on a piece of plain white paper, then put a dollop of yellow and blue paint in the middle of the page next to each other. I then carefully wrapped the paper in clingfilm making sure to tuck it under. Robbie used his hands to squash and mix the paint together, creating green paint from mixing the two colours and painting the shamrock at the same time.

Robbie really enjoyed this activity and found the mixing of the colours to be extremely interesting. We spent lots of time talking about the colours mixing and continued to explore this with other colours after. He also enjoyed the different sensory experience of squashing the paint under the clingfilm. We talked about how it felt and why it wasn’t making his hands dirty.

Handprint painted Claddagh picture – resources: paper, coloured paint

Here we simply painted Robbie’s hands and stamped them onto the paper, then used a paintbrush to paint the heart and crown. We talked about the meaning of the Claddagh and where you see it and why.

Cheesy Soda bread Muffins – Recipe here

We made these little muffins for Daddy mostly as he is a huge fan of soda bread. They were a great, tasty little snack or accompaniment for soup at lunchtime. With them being a soda bread recipe they fitted well into our Ireland theme.