It’s always fun to do hands on crafts to celebrate holidays. It’s even more fun if those crafts are ones you can eat while you make them. I’m pretty sure that’s why Fruit Loops Rainbows are always a big hit with my kids.
I give the kids a couple of handfuls of Fruit Loops (I actually use the generic cereal), and they get to sort and build their rainbows however they’d like.
The littlest figured out this year that if she skipped part of her Fruit Loops rainbow, she would have more cereal left over to eat. She’s a smart one, that kid!
Fruit Loops Rainbows are a great craft for preschoolers. They have to use sorting skills, gluing skills, and fine motor skills to make them. However, I was surprised by how much all of my kids enjoyed making them, despite their being 5, 7, and 9.
This craft took the kids about 30-45 minutes. They sat around chatting while they sorted, they made the rainbows to figure out how many of each color they needed, they bartered with each other in order to get more of one color than another, and then they got out the glue and started gluing.
While they glued their Fruit Loops rainbows, we talked about the original Saint Patrick, so here’s a quick and shortened version about St. Patrick if you’re interested in sharing it with your kids.
Here’s another fun St. Patrick’s Day craft we enjoyed.
Just click on the picture to go to this craft that helps your kids get practice with measuring!
When St. Patrick was young, he was taken into slavery in Ireland for 6 years (like Joseph in Egypt- if you want to draw comparisons with your kids).
Through his experience, Patrick’s faith became real to him, and he no longer claimed his faith simply because of his birth, but rather it became real to him and he dedicated himself to Christ.
Several years later, he had a dream that God was telling him to go to the coast, and when he did so he found a boat and was able to go back to his family in Britain.
He then had another dream that the people of Ireland were begging him to come back to them. Because of the second dream, he began studying to become a priest, so he could go back to Ireland and share God’s love with the Irish.
When he became a priest, Patrick headed back to Ireland, where he told people about God, converted thousands, and helped build churches.
St. Patrick (who wasn’t a saint at the time, since the Catholic church doesn’t bestow sainthood until after a person has died) is said to have used the shamrock to explain the trinity.
Like all 3 leaves make up a clover, so the trinity is made up of 3 parts: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. They are not separate, but different parts of one whole.
Talking about St. Patrick with your kids can be a great way to bring up ideas like following God’s promptings, sacrificing our own comfort in order to minister to others, and, of course, the trinity.
If your kids are interested in learning more about St. Patrick (and are a little older), this video, that’s currently free with an Amazon Prime subscription, is quite interesting. It does bring up the practices of the Druids in Ireland, so I would recommend that you preview it to make sure that you’re comfortable with it before letting your kids watch.
What are your favorite activities on St. Patrick’s Day? Do you eat green pancakes? Pinch those who aren’t wearing green? Have you ever made Fruit Loops rainbows with your kids?
I’d love to hear, so drop me a comment below!
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