The National Day of Wales, 1st March, Saint David is Wales’ patron saint also known as Dewi Sant. Daffodils and leeks are the National Emblems for Wales. Take a look at a few activities listed below to celebrate St. David’s Day and a great way to welcome in spring with your children
Egg Cup Daffodil
- Draw out a flower shape (bit like a star) on to card or paper.
- Paint the flower base (yellow preferably)
- Cut out one of the egg cups from an egg box.
- Paint the egg cup (orange).
- Wrap green tissue paper or paper round a straw, til its completely covered. Cellotape each of the ends up.
- Cellotape the straw to the back of the flower base once it has dried to act as a stem.
- Glue on the egg cup to the flower base in the middle.
And now you have a beautiful daffodil 
You can always make several daffodils and put them in a vase. To make a homemade vase take a kitchen roll tube and paint it however you like. You may wish to add a cardboard base to the bottom of the base to make it more steady and hold more daffodils.
- Personal, Social and Emotional- Feeling proud of their own achievements
- Physical Development- Using equipment and materials
- Creative- Exploring media and materials, Responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas.
Leek Collage
- Draw or find a picture of a leek.
- Cut up green and white tissue paper or paper into little pieces.
- Stick on paper pieces on the leek picture with glue.
More Challenging:
- Ask the child to help you cut up the pieces of paper.
- Show them some leeks and ask them to draw out their own leek.
- Personal, social and emotional- Learning new skills
- Physical Development- Using equipment and materials
- Creative- Exploring media and materials, Responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas
Observational Drawing of Leeks and Daffodils
Have a vase of daffodils or a bunch of leeks, ask the children to draw or paint a picture of the leeks or daffodils. Encourage them to feel the different textures, smell them and look at the different colours.
- Physical Development- Using equipment and materials
- Creative- Exploring media and materials, Responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas.
- Communication, Language and Literacy- Begin to make marks and distinguish between the marks they make.
Planting daffodil bulbs
What better way to welcome in the spring than to plant new daffodil bulbs in flower pots, then encourage the children to water and care for them as they grow.
- Personal, Social and Emotional- Developing a curiosity and exploring the environment.
- Knowledge and Understanding of the World- Curiosity about the environment.
- Creative- Exploring materials, Responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas.
Leek and Potato Soup
Warm up with this delicious leek and potato soup have it for lunch or dinner on St.David’s Day.
Ingredients
Serves: 4
- 1 knob of butter
- 1 large chopped leek
- 4-5 peeled and diced medium potatoes
- 900ml (1 1/2 pints) stock, chicken or vegetable
- single cream if you want it creamy
- Heat butter slowly in pan till melted. Add chopped leeks and cover, cook slowly for about 5 minutes.
- Add potatoes and cover, cooking slowly for another 5-10 minutes till soft.
- Pour in stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
- Mash with potato masher for a chunky soup.
- If you want a creamy soup simply blend the soup with a hand blender and bring back to piping hot. Add a spoon of single cream to each bowl
Welsh Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 225g/8oz self-raising flour, sieved
- 110g/4oz salted butter
- 1 egg
- few sultanas
- milk, if needed
- 85g/3oz caster sugar
- little butter for greasing
- Rub the fat into the sieved flour to make breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, dried fruit and then the egg. Mix to combine, then form a ball of dough, using a splash of milk if needed.
- Roll out the pastry until it is a 5mm/¼in thick and cut into rounds with a 7.5-10cm/3-4in fluted cutter.
- You now need a bakestone, a heavy iron griddle or a large frying pan (with a knob of melted butter). Rub the griddle or bakestone with butter and wipe the excess away. Put it on to a direct heat and wait until it heats up, place the Welsh cakes on the griddle, turning once. They need about 2-3 minutes each side. Each side needs to be caramel brown before turning.
- Remove from the pan and dust with caster sugar while still warm. Some leave out the dried fruit, and split them when cool and sandwich them together with jam.
Welsh Flag
- Join one piece of green rectangular paper together with a piece of white rectangular paper with glue or cellotape. Alternatively divide a piece of A4 paper in half long ways and encourage the child to colour the bottom half green and leave the top half white.
- Find and print a picture of a dragon, or if your feeling creative draw one yourself or your child could draw one too.
- Decorate the dragon with red paint or red paper.
- To make a flag with a pole simply make the flag smaller and attach a straw using cellotape. Then your child can enjoy waving around the Welsh flag.
- Physical Development- Using equipment and materials
- Creative- Exploring media and materials, Responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas.
Dragons and Castles
Provide the children with books about dragons, pictures of dragons and plastic toy dragons. Talk about what dragons look like, the scales on their bodies, how they breathe fire, their claws, their size, colour and shape, and don’t forget to stress they don’t exist.
Paint pictures of dragons after reading stories about dragons or seeing pictures of them. Add sand to the paint to create a rough skin feel on their dragon.
Provide them with some bricks to build a castle with and some toy people to use as knights and encourage the children to pretend the knights are defending the castle from the dragon.
Turn the role play area or an area at home into a castle, add dressing up clothes for knights (take a look at the St. George’s Day activities to see how to make a shield and sword.) kings, queens and princesses. Cut out and stick up pictures of dragons. Use brooms upside for riding horses or a toy horse if you have one.
Make a dragon or castle from cardboard boxes and tubes and any recycled junk materials you have.
Make or buy a dragon kite to fly outside on a windy day. Here is an activity to make a kite: Kite instructions.
Dragon footprints Cut out dragon footprints bigger than the child’s feet, from corrugated cardboard. Tie some ribbon or string around the footprints and the child’s feet so it is attached. Put some green paint into a tray and layout a roll of paper or wallpaper on the blank side works well. Put a bowl of soapy water a chair and a towel at one end so you are ready to grab your little dragon and dunk them afterwards. Ask them to dip their dragon feet into the paint (they may need help) and make footprints on the paper.
In the sand tray build sand castles and make moats with water around the castle. Remember if you have dry sand to add water to it until it is the right consistency to make a castles. Provide the children with straws and paper and sticky tape, to make flags with to stick in the top of their castles.
To extend learning about dragons a little more why not look at lizards and compare them to dragons, for example their scaly skin and claws. You could ask someone to bring one in to the setting or a friend to bring one to show your little one. Some zoo’s may also have some lizards to look at.
Florrie’s Dragon is a programme on the children’s tv programmes and Mike the Knight is also another related show to dragons and castles and shows them in a friendly way.
Plan a visit to a local castle. click on this link to find one. http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/castles/
Junk modelling a castle with yogurt pots, tubes, cardboards boxes etc.
Chalk Castles Cut out castle silhouettes. Give the children some dark coloured paper, chalk and the silhouettes. Ask the children to rub the chalk around the edges of the castles on to the paper. Once the edges have been completely rubbed lift up the castle shape. This could be done outside on a patio.
