Rainbows & Potatoes (St. Patrick's Day)

Learning Goal: Light can be reflected, refracted (bent) or absorbed by an object. Rain bends and separates sunlight into colors of the rainbow.

• Reading= Green as a Bean by Karla Kuskin, Pigs Love Potatoes by Anika Denise and What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz (or A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman). Letter of the day= Sh is for shamrock.
• Science= Experiment with light, rainbows or color mixing. 1) Place a variety of long, narrow objects into a glass of water. Observe how the objects appear to bend at the surface of the water. (Light changes speeds as it passes through different mediums, making objects appear bent.) 2) Squirt water from spray bottles into the sunshine to make a rainbow (or use a prism). 3) Rainbow in a bag. Fill a sealable plastic bag with stripes of paint (blue, yellow and red) then squeeze and squish to mix the colors. 4) Use droppers to mix colored water. (Provide only blue, red and yellow.) How many different colors can you make? Tip: Fill a white ice cube tray with your unique mix of colors.
• Art= Use potato stamps to make shamrocks. Carve heart shapes into halved potatoes. Dip in green paint and stamp three times to create shamrocks in a variety of sizes. Add stems using your finger.
• Music= Play hot potato as you listen to Debussy’s Three Nocturnes, Clouds or your favorite bagpipe melodies. Tip: When the music stops, the child with the potato can remove a layer of foil from a baked potato. When the potato is finally unwrapped, break for lunch and enjoy!
• Play= Have a gunny sack race to Ireland, dress up Mr. Potato Head, or make shamrock pretzels (coated with green colored sugar and cinnamon).

Fun fact: St. Patrick was a Catholic missionary in Ireland who often used the three-leaf shamrock to explain the Trinity. St. Patrick's Day commemorates his death on March 17 in AD 461.