A St. Patrick's Day Chromatography Shamrock

Need a last minute idea for St. Patrick's Day?  This shamrock might be just the thing!  Legend has it that St. Patrick used the shamrock to teach the Irish people about the Holy Trinity.  Whether or not that's true, the shamrock does illustrate our belief in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three-in-one, the Holy Trinity.  A huge thank you to my friend, Heidi, who gave me this idea when she suggested chromatography for our kids' science fair!

This craft works well for all kids up through elementary school, because it incorporates science as well as being a craft.  Our Meteorologist loved this and he's nine.  Here's what you need for supplies:

• Coffee Filter
• Washable markers (they bleed better)
• A small cup of water
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Hole Punch
• Ribbon or String
• My printable
• Glue stick

Spread the coffee filter out and color your design onto the center portion.  Using two or three colors will allow the colors to blend and mix, giving pretty designs.  Darker colors work best and will spread well.  My favorite St. Patrick's day colors for shamrocks are green, blue and purple. 

Once you have your filter colored, fold it into a cone, like this:

Next comes the really fun part!  Chromatography is the separation of parts of a mixture.  This is done by putting the mixture (the marker colors) in a solution, in this case a cup of water.  Put the tip of the cone into the water, being careful to put in only the tip.  If you soak the filter, the colors won't have time to separate.  Once the separation slows down, you can put the filter in a little farther.  This will cause the colors to bleed up the length of the cone, like this:

 Make sure you have a tray ready to dry the filters.  Kids love this part and you will have very wet filters before they are done!  I left ours in a cone shape for about an hour, and then opened them up to dry completely.  A blow dryer set on low works very well if you are in a hurry.

This is what ours looked like when opened up:

After they dry, fold the filters in half and cut out the shape of a half shamrock, so that when you open it up, you have a complete shamrock.  Make sure that it has three leaves!  I drew mine lightly with pencil, but you could just cut it.  I traced half the width of the stem, one leaf, and half the width of the other leaf, and cut it out.  This is just like folding paper and cutting out a half heart shape.

I then added my printable poem with a glue stick.  You can print out a sheet with copies of the poem on it here.   Just cut out as many copies as you need and glue it on.  I was liberal with the glue as well, which the Superhero Princess appreciated!

Finally, you can hole punch the top of the filter (just be gentle as they can rip easily) and add a ribbon to hang it up.  You could also mount it on paper, or just put it up on a cork board or the fridge.

Remind your children that we believe in three persons in one God, just as the shamrock is three leaves, but one flower.  Enjoy, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

God bless you and your family,

Carolyn