Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

“May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.”

St. Patrick’s Day is the day of green, so why not take that other meaning of green into account? There are so many fun ways you can celebrate this green holiday with, and without, your kids.

photo credit: flickr

Celebrate Ireland through one of its time-honored traditions that children can easily participate. Irish storytelling, dancing, and music are all wonderful ways to engage children in Irish culture and are simply fun!

• Try telling an Irish children’s story and for older children, see if they can retell it back to you. If you want to go more in depth with this activity, you can work on the art of storytelling, story mapping, and even acting.
• Learn to sing a children’s song from Ireland.
• Get up and move! Give Irish dancing a try or do a version of musical chairs (or shamrocks if you are inclined) using Irish music.
• Or give an eco-friendly St. Patrick’s Day craft a try.

photo credit: flickr

It is hard to separate holidays with food and St. Patrick’s Day is no exception. From making green food to green drinks, you can have a lot of fun with a holiday associated with green!

• Make real green food! Spinach, peas, pesto, kale, broccoli, green apples,
• Make vegetarian versions of traditional Irish recipes.
• Make green treats with natural ingredients: popsicles, muffins, cake with green frosting, or cookies with natural green icing, or experiement with fruits, veggies, and spices to make natural food coloring for any recipe.
• Make green beer without any artificial food coloring.
• Buy “green” beer. From organic beer to breweries with a strong environmental ethic, you can find them all. I would also urge you to support your local handcrafted brewers. Both the West Coast and East Coast have some great ones to choose from.

Or if you are in a mood for relaxing with a movie, one of my favorites is The Secret of Roan Inish.

Just be sure to check out commonsensemedia.org to determine if it is age appropriate for your own children. They always give a good diea about the content and why it is given a certain rating so you can decide for yourself. I also like that they give ideas of what kinds of questions you can discuss after watching the movie.

Then after the kids are in bed, relax with your green beer and some lovely music from Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold (he released a new EP for free called Three Songs that I was going to link to, but can’t find a working link now, sorry)… but the video above is my favorite of the three and is perfect for today.