scraps of torn construction paper taped to a window in the shape of a rainbow

Shamrock Hunt

One thing that is REALLY helping me get through this situation is my amazing mom crew. We are so lucky to have a neighborhood school with a strong, tight-knit community.

The second-grade moms have an ongoing group text thread that has only gotten more active and hilarious over the past week as we’ve shared memes, learning resources, and all kinds of ideas for how to keep our kids out of our hair.

I’m not sure where the idea originated, but one of my friends found this post and shared it with the group. Another friend shared a list for a leprechaun-themed scavenger hunt, and we all jumped on it: the perfect distraction for our first few days of isolation.

A social media post advertising a community-wide shamrock hunt for kids and parents. Text reads: It's a community wide Shamrock Hunt! All you have to do is put a Shamrock in your window on March 17th. That's it! Color it, paint it, cut it out, print it from the printer, whatever. Then we can get outside, walk around and see how many Shamrocks we can find! It would be awesome to post pictures of your finds back here. It's easy. No human contact. Get fresh air. Don't buy toilet paper. Just put a shamrock in your window.
I don’t have a source for this…if you know where it originated, please share!

My household, of course, took these challenges very seriously. We have large picture windows in our front hall, so I wanted to create something striking that would make our neighbors smile. My kids love rainbows (what 5- and 8-year-olds don’t?) so that’s where we started.

I had a few goals for this project. It needed to be:

  • time consuming: we’ve got A LOT of time to kill over the next however-long, let’s drag things out as much as possible.
  • medium-to-low on the messy scale: in my house this means nothing that can stain or permanently mar clothes and work surfaces, and supplies and scraps can be cleaned up in 3 minutes or less.
  • child-led: I help them lay down a foundation, and guide them toward plans that are workable, and then they do most of the work without supervision.
A little boy and little girl making a rainbow collage on their front window.
A young girl tapes paper to a window to make a rainbow picture

A torn-paper collage fit the bill perfectly. They could rip the paper and use the tape without my help. I did cut out the pot of gold, and a bunch of yellow circles for coins. I also taped one loose row of each color, and they filled in the rest.

Decorated window with the greeting "Happy St. Paddy's Day' surrounded by shamrocks
A paper shamrock made by stapling 3 hearts together, taped to a window.

Of course, we also needed shamrocks. For this I let Allie cut lots and lots of green hearts and staple them together into shamrock shapes, while I used acrylic paint to write “Happy St. Paddy’s Day” on the window.

Window decoration of a rainbow and pot of gold, made with construction paper
A house with a front window decorated for St. Patrick's Day.

The whole window display took us about 4 hours from start to finish–not something I ever would have had the time or motivation for if we weren’t housebound. But we all had a great time doing it, and while we were working we got to say hi to a bunch of friends who walked past.

scraps of torn construction paper taped to a window in the shape of a rainbow

Once we were done, we headed out for our shamrock hunt. I had a list of houses I knew were participating, so we mapped out a little route through the neighborhood, and printed out our scavenger hunt list. I also grabbed a pack of sidewalk chalk so we could draw pictures or write messages in front of our friends’ houses. This was super fun for the kids, and helped soften the blow of not being able to go in and see the people whose houses we stopped at.

A young boy and girl sitting on the sidewalk, writing messages in chalk.
A little boy shows off his handwriting in sidewalk chalk
It says “Did you see a clover?” and he wrote it all by himself (with spelling help from mom).
A little girl in a green tutu writing on the sidewalk outside of school.
“We miss are teachers!” Allie left this message at the bottom of our school steps.
A little boy in a bike helmet writing his name in chalk on the sidewalk.
He tagged the whole neighborhood with his name. People who don’t know us are going to be wondering who this “Theo” is for days.

We were out for over an hour and a half and walked almost 3 miles! We found everything on our scavenger hunt list except for a Starbucks Cup (which is good! No litter and no one ignoring Shelter In Place rules for their coffee!) It was so much fun that I think we’ll make window decorating a regular thing, and we’ll definitely be taking lots of long walks for the foreseeable future.