March the First - St David's Day Activities

What do St Patrick, St Andrew, St George and St David have in common?  Obviously from the names you can guess that they are all saints but did you know they are the patron saints of the countries making up the UK and Ireland?  Patrick for Ireland; Andrew for Scotland, George for England and David for Wales and each of them has their own day in the calendar.  The most celebrated globally has got to be Saint Patrick, the American staff at the International School in Stuttgart went all out last year when we were there; face paint, themed activities etc. ; but Saint Davids Day - not a mention.
One of the things I like to do is (try!) and fit in whatever activities we are doing with calendar events.  With things like Christmas this is really easy but for other occasions it needs a little resourcefulness.  So here is our list of possible activities all themed around Wales, dragons, leeks and daffodils and the colours white, red and green.  If you do try any of them let me know how it goes!

St Davids Day at Activity Village.co.uk - lots of ideas and printables
More resources at DLTK Kids -crafts and colouring
Visit Wales has pages for making a dragon, daffodil or Welsh flag
ichild has some nice printables for older children
Filth Wizardry has some nice stuff about Wales and a craft as well
Clever Toddler has some ideas for younger ones.

My own cunning idea is that the traditional Welsh costume (for girls) has a hat that looks pretty similar to those pilgrim hats that you see in every kind of activity/craft page around thanksgiving.  Maybe its just me but I think so...

So I intend to adapt some of the things I have bookmarked from earlier in the year.  

Incidently the costume above is part of a historical publicity stunt during the 19th century - in reality the costume worn in Wales was not really so different from what the English wore.  But during the 19th century one Lady Llanover who had a stately home (Llanover House)  in South Wales had her employees and tenants dress in a standardised costume and she popularised Wales as a tourist destination.  It must have been a resounding success because this is now recognised everywhere as the National Costume and children in Wales dress like this to go to school on St Davids Day.