netTrekker Blog

St. Patty’s Day

One of my favorite days to celebrate, St. Patrick’s Day, is coming up next week on March 17th. According to U.S. Census Bureau 2009 release, there are 36.5 million U.S. residents who claim to be of Irish Ancestry. This is 32% of our total population. It’s the second highest reported ancestry, with Germany being number one.  Now as a daughter of an Irish father and an Italian mother, I was shocked by this number. I would have expected Italy or England to be #1.

But I digress. I want to share with you more than just confounding numbers! I want to share some ideas for St. Patrick’s Day. After all, this green holiday is coming up next week!
I searched the elementary netTrekker tab and found  28 resources for “St. Patrick’s Day”. I selected the BBC  (British Broadcast Corporation) site that had an interactive book about St. Patrick. I learned something new! In all my 35 years, I don’t once remember being told that there never were snakes in Ireland to begin with and that the snakes were more a symbolic reference to other evils. As someone who is terrified of snakes, I’m now ready to move to Ireland.

Of course I didn’t stop there, I went on to learn more about the festivities and how they got started in America, the reason for the shamrock association, and many more interesting trivial facts. The reason we wear green, pinch each other, drink green beverages or enjoy corned beef and cabbage became lost from the original purpose of the holiday.

Some ideas for the classroom:

• Have students write 3 facts of St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations or St. Patrick the person on a 3 leaf clover, listing one fact on each leaf.
• Students can write a limerick about St. Patrick’s Day.
• Create an Inspiration (or other diagram) comparing the traditional St. Patrick’s Day festivities to today’s festivities.
• Print out a map (you can find these in netTrekker d.i.) and track St. Patrick’s journey from Britain to Ireland and his trek afterwards. Add facts for each trek, such as when he was kidnapped into slavery and when he escaped.
• Introduce other Irish symbols or characters, such as leprechauns, rainbows, pots of gold, and blarney stones.  Have students create a PhotoStory about one of these symbols, the myth, the truth behind the myth and how they are thought of today.

Of course, netTrekker d.i. has all the resources to find the information and background on each of these projects. I would love to hear how you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day –just make sure it’s a way that we can share with the kids.

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