St. Patty's Pretzels

 I absolutely love Family Fun magazine. In the March issue I saw this creative idea for a St. Patty's Day snack. While they used yogurt covered pretzels and white chocolate for theirs, we did things a little differently.

Using the same idea, I got some candy bark (vanilla is what I found at the store, but almond is a good choice too), small pretzels, and colored sugar. I added some green food coloring to some regular sugar, but your might want to use actual decorating sugar because the grains of sugar are bigger and will look better. However, if your kids are like mine and don't care about things like that, then you should be good to go with regular sugar.

Follow the directions on the package of your candy bark to melt it. I used the microwave method and it worked great. I loaded up pretzels with coating and laid them out on the wax paper in a clover shape.

Then the boys tried to cover just the edges with the colored sugar. It was easier said ten done, as I also tried to just do the edges to match the Family Fun pretzels better. Not easy. (In their version they melt the white chocolate and then pipe it onto the edges of the pretzels and add a stem also, so the only wet part is the outer edge versus these pretzels that catch all the sugar drizzled or dumped! on them.)

 Leave them out to dry, break off the wax paper and tap off the loose sugar. We made these last night so that they could be enjoyed all day today.

 After a bowl of sugary (and lucky!) cereal as is our tradition,

I let the boys eat some of their treats.

Make sure to save some plain ones for yourself - they are sweet enough without all that colored sugar!

Lucky Charms

I don't know if these special edition retro boxes of Lucky Charms are just at Target, but even regular Lucky Charms (or a generic variety) are perfect for this sorting activity I posted last year.

 No better time of year than St. Patrick's Day when we start thinking about the Luck of the Irish and wearing green and that elicit pot of gold at the end of a rainbow where leprechauns dance.

Lucky Sorting

We did this activity on St. Patrick's Day (slow posting, I know), but it really could be used any day. It is great for color and shape recognition,plus the kids get a snack while doing it!
Items needed:
-Box of Lucky Charms
-Paper
-Crayons
-(We used an ice cube tray to help sort, but it is optional)
In our box of Lucky Charms there were 8 shapes which was perfect because our ice cube tray has 16 spaces. I cut little squares out of paper that would fit in the trays. You could also just make a grid on a regular piece of paper (much easier). Then each square was assigned the color or shape to match one of the marshmallows. I put the matching color and shape side by side, but that can be moved around for more difficulty. One thing I would suggest is not separating the marshmallows and cereal. I tried this and the marshmallows get stuck together. Have fun sorting!