The Leprechaun Invasion/Spring Equinox

Near a misty stream in Ireland in the hollow of a tree

Live mystical, magical leprechauns who are clever as can be

With their pointed ears, and turned up toes and little coats of green

The leprechauns busily make their shoes and try hard not to be seen.

Only those who really believe have seen these little elves

And if we are all believers we can surely see for ourselves.

- Unknown

The morning of St. Patrick's Day, the girls awoke to find that a *leprechaun* had left them little barrettes on their nature table under some green wool felt, as a thank you for the beautiful naturescape *he* is enjoying.

They were very excited and we had to learn all about the legend of the leprechaun. They couldn't stop talking about the little fellas all day.

After, we read the story of St. Patrick by Tomie dePaola and then sat down to do some wet on wet painting. We decided in honor of St. Patrick's Day and our little green friends, to make rainbows.

This was our first exposure to wet on wet painting and what a marvelous experience. We worked from the three basic colors (red, yellow and blue)and marveled as the colors just came alive and flowed into each other, creating our orange, green and purple. The girls each designed their own rainbows. And then we set them outside to dry.

Look at how vibrant those colors are!

Now, I am actually going to combine two posts because they are tied into each other. In honor of spring, I made some snowdrop flower fairies with guidance from "All Year Round" by Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marije Rowling. They are very easy to make, but took me a bit longer because it was my first time :)

I used wool, cotton batting and fleece.

Funny how an odd little shape can turn from something like this...

to this...

I decided to add the silk flowers since I don't have any real snowdrops and I wanted to get them on the nature table. The girls thought they were darling.

On the night of the Spring Equinox, we selected a poem about spring and my husband read it while the girls and I lit a candle on the nature table.

And set our flower fairies near it.

The girls were enchanted and listened intently as they watched the dancing flame.

They blew out the candle and went to bed. To their surprise, the next morning, they woke to find three more snowdrop flower fairies on the nature table and insisted that the leprechaun came back in the night and made them for us...

All I could do was smile that weee little smile ;)