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Tuesday, March 10, 2015

St. Patrick's Day Celebrations

After being lucky enough to visit relatives in Ireland for two weeks this summer, 
I was super excited to make St. Patrick's Day related lessons for my classroom this year.



Pictures from one crazy drive though Ireland! We returned from our trip the week before school... 
so these are the only pictures I have uploaded to my computer so far.  Fail.
Teaching middle school, I have never experienced the "fun" of a St. Patrick's Day classroom party.  (If I did, I imagine it would look like this this this and this.) ...but here are a few ideas I had to make the holiday meaningful within my lessons...

1. Use QR codes to lead students to videos and text about the holiday.  I really do like the concept that informational text can come in the form of a video clip.  I did find some awesome video clips on www.history.com to make the product below.  Everything from comparing and contrasting myths of leprechauns to watching beef stew be made. {Yum.}
Bottom line? St. Patrick's Day is high interest AND there are a lot of misconceptions about the holiday and history.  I love opportunities for "research & respond" for a topic that has common misconceptions.  It is a great opportunity for learning.


2. Keep your lessons meaningful but with a fun twist on the lessons you already had planned! This time of year I am usually briefly reviewing coordinate graphing before testing...as well as completing a life science unit.  So I changed my usual graphing game into something more St. Patrick's Day-themed and kept my lab to using the color green rather than my old lesson plan of using multi-colors!



 What do YOU do?






2 comments:

Unknown said...

What great lessons and advice! I'm a middle school math teacher in an inner city school. We are about 92% African-American and the remainder Hispanic. I can't how many times a student has asked me, "Are you a real ginger?" or "Can I touch your hair?" Both of my parents have Irish ancestry so St. Patrick's Day is big thing in my classroom! The kids will sit on the edge of their seat to hear a little bit about Irish culture - it's so foreign and mysterious to them. I add a little snippet of culture to my worksheets, puzzles, graphs what ever I can think of!! My brain breaks usually have an Irish theme all of March. It's nice to know the kids learn it's not all about wearing green and pinching! THANKS & Good Luck!

A Middle School Survival Guide said...

Thanks for your comment, Betty! You are so right. It isn't all about wearing green and eating Irish potatoes and is a great opportunity to learn about a culture. :)

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