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AN OPTICAL ILLUSION


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All the diagonal lines are parallel to each other

ST. PATTY'S RIDDLES

What is out on the lawn all summer and is Irish?

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What do you call a fake stone in Ireland?

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When is an Irish Potato not an Irish Potato?

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What does it mean when you find a horseshoe?

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Why did the elephant wear his green sneakers?

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What happens when a leprechaun falls into a river?

ST. PATRICK'S DAY

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated each year on March 17th. In Ireland, Saint Patrick’s Day is both a holy day and a national holiday. Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland as he was the one who brought Christianity to the Irish. According to legend, Saint Patrick used a shamrock to explain about God. The shamrock, which looks like clover, has three leaves on each stem. Saint Patrick told the people that the shamrock was like the idea of the Trinity – that in the one God there are three divine beings: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The shamrock was sacred to the Druids, so Saint Patrick’s use of it in explaining the trinity was very wise. Although it began in Ireland, Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated in countries around the world. People with Irish heritage remind themselves of the beautiful green countryside of Ireland by wearing green and taking part in the festivities. Saint Patrick’s Day is usually celebrated with a parade. The one in Dublin, Ireland is known to some as the Irish Mardi Gras. But the one in New York City is actually one of the biggest. It lasts for hours. Two Irish wolfhounds, the mascots of the New York National Guard infantry regiment the “Fighting 69th”, always lead the parade. More than one hundred bands and a hundred thousand marchers follow the wolfhounds in the parade.


Find 6 words associated with St. Patrick's Day
SKEZD
NASHN
ERIRA
EIWEL
RJOIA
GIBNR

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Answers

HOW TO PLAY METRO BOGGLE: Search for words that can be constructed from the letters of adjacent cubes, where "adjacent" cubes are those horizontally or vertically neighboring. Words must be at least three letters and may include singular or plural, but may not use the same letter cube more than once per word.


EAT! SLEEP! EAT! SLEEP! I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN KEEP UP THIS FRANTIC PACE!

THE METRO 7 ERRORS
Find the seven differences between these two pictures.
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METRO CHALLENGE: CAN YOU LET GO OF THE LEPRECHAUN'S GOLD

Legend says a leprechaun can't lie, but he can be very tricky -- just like this St. Patrick's Day challenge. Can you let his gold slip through your fingers? The only thing you will need is a coin. Put your hands together, palms facing. Bend your middle fingers as shown, then ask someone to slip a coin between the tips of your ring fingers. Try to release the coin by pulling apart your ring fingers. Letting go of money is usually easy, so how come here it's so hard? 

Because it lacks certain tendons that your other fingers have, your ring finger is at the mercy of its next-door neighbor, the middle finger. The two are connected by a piece of cordlike tissue, and when your middle fingers are bent as they are here, it tightens, drawing together your ring fingers. Until you unfold your middle fingers, the coin is all but impossible to release.

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THIS IS A POT OF GOLD THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

POT O' GOLD



balloon
paper mache paste 
strips of newspaper
black tempra/poster paint

Prepare your paper mache paste. 

Blow up the balloon to an appropriate size for your pot of gold. 

Draw a line around the middle of the balloon to use as a guide when applying the paper mache to your balloon since you only want to cover half of the balloon.

 Stick the knotted end of the balloon in a small bowl so that it does not roll around on you while you are applying the newspaper strips.

 Apply about 3 or four layers of newspaper strips to half of the balloon. Be very careful not to get any paste on the half of the balloon that is not being mached. I actually washed the other half of the balloon with a damp cloth at the end. Any paste on the bare part of the balloon will pull as it dries and will likely cause the balloon to pop before the newspaper is dry.

 Make the "feet" for your pot. Take about 1/4 of a page of newspaper and roll it into a ball. Dip it in the paper mache paste and roll it more. Add a few short strips of newspaper and paste until the ball keeps its shape. Repeat two more times so that you have three feet.

 Arrange the round feet on your newspaper covered table in a triangular pattern.

 Set your balloon on top of the feet and then secure as best you can with short narrow strips of newspaper and paste. Let dry.

 Do not burst the balloon yet. Apply a few more layers of newspaper and paste paying particular attention to secure the feet to the bottom of the pot. 

 Let the project dry and then you can repeat a third time and fourth time if you wish your pot to be more durable.

 Remove the balloon by cutting off the knot. This will allow the balloon to deflate slowly and is less likely to damage the craft than if you were to burst the balloon.

 Paint the paper mache pot black

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AUNTIE MARGARET SEZ:  If you don't want the mess of paper mache, you can use play dough or any fast drying clay to make the shape of a pot (of gold) around the balloon and put three balls of dough on the bottom for feet to keep the pot from rolling around. We let the outside dry a while then popped the balloon to let the inside dry. Once dry we painted it black and set it out on March 16th before the kids went to bed. The leprechauns visited through the night and filled it with gold coins (foil covered chocolates)

METRO FLASH GAME OF THE MONTH - SHAMROCK SUDOKU
Place the shamrocks in the cells such that each picture appears only once in each row, once in each column, and once in each 3x3 grid.

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