Week five of our round the world adventure and we’re off to Ireland. We’re all having fun with these weekly themes, and I think making lemonade out of the lemons that (iso) life is handing us right now.
I was super pleased when Missy Moo chose Ireland, and long time followers of this blog will know that my husband is from Ireland and we visit semi regularly. Finally a country I knew a little bit about… what a lovely change from Russia, Greenland and Brazil.
Each week in our new country we have done an activity that reflected the reason Missy Moo chose to visit that place… generally from a picture on her map. This week was no different so our Monday activity was to learn all about the Claddagh ring.
I wear a Claddagh ring daily, and never take it off (especially now with my chubby pregnant fingers), so I started by telling Missy Moo about it. The ring’s design represents friendship, loyalty and love. You can read more about the history of the rings in this facebook post, but here’s the craft we made.
Who doesn’t love a hand print craft? Oh… as a fun bonus these rings also send a message about your dating status!
On Tuesday we really got into the leprechaun culture from the south with a few rainbow themed activities. We had a really great day full of sensory and imaginative play.
I started by briefly explaining that leprechauns were from Ireland and often hid their gold at the end of a rainbow. So that for today’s activity we would be making rainbows.
We made rainbow rice, and a skittles rainbow (more details here), and then while we were waiting for the rice to dry we watched a little video about leprechauns.
And wouldn’t you know it, while we were watching the video a sneaky leprechaun slipped coins into our skittles rainbow!
Then the girls basically spent the rest of the day playing on again off again with the rainbow rice. Missy Moo had a few more visits from leprechauns hiding coins in the rice for her to find, which kept her highly entertained. She made him a card too. Was very sweet and overall a highlight of our week in Ireland.
It’s worth noting that I’m writing this about a week and a half after we made that coloured rice and it is still a bit hit (especially with my two year old) and played with most days.
On Wednesday it was time for a little Irish cooking. We went for Irish Soda Bread, which is yeast free and ready to eat from start to finish in under an hour… brilliant! Yummy with butter and jam and worth a crack if you’ve got an hour to spare. My kids loved kneading the dough.
For Thursday we made ours transition from the South of Ireland (the Republic) to Northern Ireland (a separate country part of the UK) by making flags. The North doesn’t officially have it’s own flag but the Ulster flag is their closest equivalent (excluding the UK’s Union Jack flag). So we made both.
After flag making we also busted out some Irish dancing moves, which the girls enjoyed. My big girl liked dancing to this one the best, while my youngest preferred the Wiggles Irish playlist I made.
For our final day in Ireland, well now Northern Ireland, we headed to the Giant’s Causeway and learnt about Finn MacCool, the giant legend said created the causeway.
We watched this video, then read a book about Finn online.
You can read it online here.
Then, we crafted. Using a toilet roll bent out of shape we made our own Giant’s Causeways. A pretty simple activity, but both girls enjoyed it. Got a little messy, but manageable.
If you’re ever in Ireland (not just virtually) make sure you head North and check out the Causeway, it’s really amazing to see in real life.
Join us next week as we head off to The Netherlands!
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